Okay, it may have been an exaggeration to say that the girl was sitting alone for hours, but that's not the point. The point is that, as soon as one guy starts talking to her, a bunch of other guys cluster around like sharks on a feeding frenzy. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration too, but the point is that she suddenly becomes attractive because somebody else is interested in her.
When I was a newcomer to Cheboygan, I walked into this crowded bar where there was standing room only, and not much of that. I never have been a stand up drunk, so I was about to leave when I spotted this empty table right up front by the band, so I sat down there. Pretty soon this lady came along and asked if she could sit with me, and I said "sure". During the course of the evening, we danced a couple times, but mostly we just talked. She was friendly enough, but she didn't seem to be coming on to me, so I didn't push it. The next night I came in and she was already sitting at the same table, so I asked if I could sit with her this time. Again it was "just friends", and that was fine with me. At closing time, she asked me to walk her home. She only lived a block or two away, so I walked her home. As we were leaving the bar, she got kind of clingy, which was fine with me. She detached herself as soon as we were out the door, though, and kept her distance as we walked, which was fine with me. When we got to her door, she didn't invite me in or anything like that, which was fine with me.
The next night I came in and the lady wasn't there, but the same table was empty, so I sat down there. When the band went on break, one of the musicians sat down at the table, introduced himself, and casually asked "How is that stuff?" "What stuff?", says I. "You know, that blonde I've been seeing you with?" says he. I told him that I didn't make a practice of referring to women as "stuff" but, be that as it may, the lady and I were just friends. "Yeah, right." says he, and he went back to playing in the band. The next night I came in, and the lady was sitting at the same table with the guy from the band, and they were all over each other. I said "hello" to both of them, but didn't ask to sit with them because I didn't want to intrude. It occurred to me later that the only reason this lady had been friendly with me was to attract the attention of the band guy, and it worked, which was fine by me. I mean, what are friends for if they can't help each other attain their goals in life?
I have always thought it strange that people spend millions of dollars trying to get elected president when the job only pays a quarter million a year. I know that most of it comes from contributions, but they must have to put up some of their own money in the beginning just to get the ball rolling. Then they go running all over the country campaigning. I would find that exhausting myself, even in my younger days. I'm sure there are easier ways to make a quarter million a year. They must be in it for the fame and glory but, chances are, a year or two into their presidency, their fame and glory will start to wear thin and, by the time they leave office, most of their fans won't even like them anymore.
I read a short story one time about this post apocalyptic scenario where the protagonist got to be president because there was nobody left who wanted the job. I might take it under those circumstances myself, but that's about the only way I would take it.
Monday, October 31, 2016
No excitement today
I don't know where excitement ranks in the hierarchy of human needs but it seems to be an innate desire in most folks, especially when they are young. Scary movies, roller coasters, mountain climbing, crowded bars, there are plenty of activities that get the pulse pounding. Risk taking for the sake of excitement must be hard wired in people; why else do we do such pointless things that accomplish nothing besides an adrenaline surge? Is it a uniquely human characteristic to seek risks and challenges, just to see what happens and what it feels like? I think it goes beyond seeking relief from boredom; there is much to ponder.
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The human proclivity for excitement links nicely with Mr. Beagles position that "humans are just competitive by nature," a statement I agree with. But the competition can be subtle, not of the win-or-lose variety but as a.means to establish our position in the tribe/pack/society. Not all of us have the desire or need to compete to be the top dog; we find the position we are comfortable with and try to stick to it, which leads to a question of leadership.
I think that good leaders arise naturally and are acknowledged as good leaders. People that go to great lengths to seek leadership positions are suspect, in my opinion. They strike me as being power hungry, with only their own best interests at heart. If you know where you're going you don't really need a leader; a good manager will get the job done. But I think we're at a point where we really don't know where we're going, and are forced to choose between two people who are pointing in two different directions. The possibility that we may prefer a third direction puts us between a rock and a hard place; regardless of who wins next week we may all lose.
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The human proclivity for excitement links nicely with Mr. Beagles position that "humans are just competitive by nature," a statement I agree with. But the competition can be subtle, not of the win-or-lose variety but as a.means to establish our position in the tribe/pack/society. Not all of us have the desire or need to compete to be the top dog; we find the position we are comfortable with and try to stick to it, which leads to a question of leadership.
I think that good leaders arise naturally and are acknowledged as good leaders. People that go to great lengths to seek leadership positions are suspect, in my opinion. They strike me as being power hungry, with only their own best interests at heart. If you know where you're going you don't really need a leader; a good manager will get the job done. But I think we're at a point where we really don't know where we're going, and are forced to choose between two people who are pointing in two different directions. The possibility that we may prefer a third direction puts us between a rock and a hard place; regardless of who wins next week we may all lose.
social habits
It is indeed more fun to watch a sporting event surrounded by loud boisterous fans than to watch it alone. Last Saturday I was watching the game in my apartment and we were winning and about half way through I went to the downstairs bar to increase my enjoyment, to be surrounded by like-minded, blue-clad fans, and it was great. I made friends (though I haven't seen them since), discussed why Maddon shouldn't be bringing in Chapman so soon, and later agreed with them that Maddon was a genius when Chapman mowed down the side. Beagles used to talk about how people (mainly he was talking about the kids on his schoolbus, but I reckon it applies to everybody) like to get excited, and I guess here was an occasion where I liked being excited, and it's more fun to be around other people who are excited at that time.
Even in my careless youth I never cared much for crowded bars. I like to have a place to sit down and to be able to hear the person I am talking to and more important, to have them hear me. I expect that the reason your friends wanted to go to the bar with the full parking lot is that more people meant it was more likely that there would be somebody there that they knew.
I guess in the old days it was in the back of my mind when I went to the bar that I might get lucky, but that almost never happened and I knew most likely it wasn't going to and I mainly went to shoot my mouth of with my friends, Still do.
I am with Old Dog in my puzzlement about a woman sitting alone at the bar for a long time until one guy approached her. In my experience it is never long before the smooth characters and overconfident drunks move in,
When I first started flying it was exciting, and I admit I was a bit scared, and I'd always start up a conversation with my seatmates. Anymore I have an array of magazines and books and I get my nose buried in them right from the get go and nobody every intrudes on my solitude, Maybe things are different in the hat on top of the hat on the top of Michigan.
I still see people reading books and magazines on the el. I am always curious as to what they are reading. Once I was reading a book by Truman Capote and another guy who had just finished a different Capote book noticed what I was reading and gave me his book/ For awhile kindles were popular on the el, but I almost never see that anymore, mostly it is the infernal clickety clack of the thumbs.
Even in my careless youth I never cared much for crowded bars. I like to have a place to sit down and to be able to hear the person I am talking to and more important, to have them hear me. I expect that the reason your friends wanted to go to the bar with the full parking lot is that more people meant it was more likely that there would be somebody there that they knew.
I guess in the old days it was in the back of my mind when I went to the bar that I might get lucky, but that almost never happened and I knew most likely it wasn't going to and I mainly went to shoot my mouth of with my friends, Still do.
I am with Old Dog in my puzzlement about a woman sitting alone at the bar for a long time until one guy approached her. In my experience it is never long before the smooth characters and overconfident drunks move in,
When I first started flying it was exciting, and I admit I was a bit scared, and I'd always start up a conversation with my seatmates. Anymore I have an array of magazines and books and I get my nose buried in them right from the get go and nobody every intrudes on my solitude, Maybe things are different in the hat on top of the hat on the top of Michigan.
I still see people reading books and magazines on the el. I am always curious as to what they are reading. Once I was reading a book by Truman Capote and another guy who had just finished a different Capote book noticed what I was reading and gave me his book/ For awhile kindles were popular on the el, but I almost never see that anymore, mostly it is the infernal clickety clack of the thumbs.
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Another round
Reading a book or magazine on a bus/train almost seems like a quaint notion these days; usually most folks are staring at or fiddling with some handheld device. Wearing headphones sends the message that they want to be left alone in their reveries. Spontaneous conversations seem to be less frequent although they do happen once in a while; it's something I've observed but not studied at length. My guess is that some people score higher on the affability index than others.
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I don't think you can judge a bar by the emptiness of a parking lot; you may just be a little early and you should have grabbed the prime spot to park. I've seen bars go from practically empty to over crowded in less than thirty minutes; the dynamics of night life are strange. A place can be jumping on a Tuesday night but completely dead on the following Saturday night, for no discernible reason. I haven't detected any patterns, but the busiest places seen to cater to the younger crowds who are out on the prowl, unencumbered by the more profound responsibilities of life.
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But I can't remember any time I've seen a woman in a bar sit for hours, alone, with no attempts at casual conversation. A simple smile and a nod is often enough to initiate a little verbal repartee, even if they're waiting for some friends or their date. As a former bartender, I'm sure Uncle Ken can add a lot to this conversation.
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Going to a bar simply to drink doesn't make any sense to me now. If all I wanted was to wet my whistle I'd stay home, but that can be a slippery slope leading to a lot of problems if it becomes habitual. Living alone has it's own perils. Social drinking is fine and dandy, a good opportunity to catch up with your pals, tell a few lies, ponder the mysteries of life, and perhaps gain new insights. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Paying big dough to watch a game is screwy to me, but they're paying for what may be a once in a lifetime experience. It means something to them, and good for them if it makes them happy. They may regret it later, though.
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I don't think you can judge a bar by the emptiness of a parking lot; you may just be a little early and you should have grabbed the prime spot to park. I've seen bars go from practically empty to over crowded in less than thirty minutes; the dynamics of night life are strange. A place can be jumping on a Tuesday night but completely dead on the following Saturday night, for no discernible reason. I haven't detected any patterns, but the busiest places seen to cater to the younger crowds who are out on the prowl, unencumbered by the more profound responsibilities of life.
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But I can't remember any time I've seen a woman in a bar sit for hours, alone, with no attempts at casual conversation. A simple smile and a nod is often enough to initiate a little verbal repartee, even if they're waiting for some friends or their date. As a former bartender, I'm sure Uncle Ken can add a lot to this conversation.
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Going to a bar simply to drink doesn't make any sense to me now. If all I wanted was to wet my whistle I'd stay home, but that can be a slippery slope leading to a lot of problems if it becomes habitual. Living alone has it's own perils. Social drinking is fine and dandy, a good opportunity to catch up with your pals, tell a few lies, ponder the mysteries of life, and perhaps gain new insights. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Paying big dough to watch a game is screwy to me, but they're paying for what may be a once in a lifetime experience. It means something to them, and good for them if it makes them happy. They may regret it later, though.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
A Hundred Dollars?!
Why would anybody pay a hundred dollars to watch a ball game in a noisy crowded bar when he could watch it for free in the comfort of his own home where the beer is cheaper? If it's for the big screen, well you can make any screen a big screen just by sitting closer to it. It must have something to do with the fandom that Ken has been talking about. Apparently it's more fun to watch a game surrounded by loud boisterous fans than it is to watch it alone. You could get together with some friends and watch the game at somebody's house, but you probably couldn't cram as many loud boisterous fans into a private home as you could into most bars, and the fans are likely to be louder and more boisterous if there more of them.
Back in my bar days, I remember that most people were more attracted to a bar where there were already a lot of people. I have been with people driving past a bar who declined to stop there because there weren't many cars in the parking lot. The more cars that were in the lot, the more everybody wanted to stop there. I understand that some bar owners would encourage their friends and neighbors to park their cars in the bar's lot, even if they were not planning to go there that night, in hopes of attracting customers. I guess the theory was that, if there were lots of people in a bar, there would be more loose women there. In my experience, however, the men outnumbered the women in most bars so, even if there were more women, there would be even more men, which would mean more competition. Also, many of the women in there were not loose at all, but were already paired up with some guy who might take umbrage if you tried to make the acquaintance of his lady friend.
Another thing I noticed back in my bar days was, a woman could sit alone for hours, and nobody wanted to talk to her until one guy approached her, and then everybody wanted to talk to her. I've seen this as well in other public places were gender was not a factor. If you don't believe me, try it some time on a bus or a train. If nobody seems interested in talking to you, just start reading a newspaper, book, or magazine, and somebody will try to engage you in conversation. I'm not sure what motives people in situations like that. Any ideas?
Back in my bar days, I remember that most people were more attracted to a bar where there were already a lot of people. I have been with people driving past a bar who declined to stop there because there weren't many cars in the parking lot. The more cars that were in the lot, the more everybody wanted to stop there. I understand that some bar owners would encourage their friends and neighbors to park their cars in the bar's lot, even if they were not planning to go there that night, in hopes of attracting customers. I guess the theory was that, if there were lots of people in a bar, there would be more loose women there. In my experience, however, the men outnumbered the women in most bars so, even if there were more women, there would be even more men, which would mean more competition. Also, many of the women in there were not loose at all, but were already paired up with some guy who might take umbrage if you tried to make the acquaintance of his lady friend.
Another thing I noticed back in my bar days was, a woman could sit alone for hours, and nobody wanted to talk to her until one guy approached her, and then everybody wanted to talk to her. I've seen this as well in other public places were gender was not a factor. If you don't believe me, try it some time on a bus or a train. If nobody seems interested in talking to you, just start reading a newspaper, book, or magazine, and somebody will try to engage you in conversation. I'm not sure what motives people in situations like that. Any ideas?
Friday, October 28, 2016
Og, Ig, Eg, and Ag
Interesting idea about Eg, Ig's cousin, taking a few shortcuts probably in making his arrowheads more quickly and almost as effective as Ig's, so that he was able to undercut Ig, dominate the arrow trade, and have his way with more of the fair maidens. That is until Ag came along. He didn't have better arrowheads than Ig, and he couldn't make them as fast as Eg. but he knew how to promote them, carved little graffitis on the cave wall and had some kind of traveling show, He realized that seeming to be good, was even better than actually being good, so that it was more important to put your efforts directly into appearing to be good, rather than putting it into being good and hoping that people would notice.
But again you guys, these are metaphors not stories. I can see where in tonight's seminar, unless we are barred from the seminary door for not having the hundred dollar cover charge, where i might use the metaphor, the early bird catches the worm, and see Old Dog crinkle his brow and say what if the later bird is late because he stayed up until midnight the night before inventing a worm detector, which allowed him to find the worms before the early bird could get to them?
You know that story about the competition between Eg and Ig has parallels with the assembly line. Ig was a craftsman, unlike Og, (remember Og?) who was merely putting out arrowheads that were good enough, Ig took pride in his work, made arrowheads of exceptional beauty, and maybe with aesthetic flourishes, he was kind of his own man, taking pride in his work, whereas Eg had no problem in pandering to the masses. A story there, how the assembly line did in the old masters.
Last morning I came across a copy of The Selfish Gene, and there was a banner across the cover, put there no doubt by an ancestor of Ag, announcing this was the fortieth anniversary of the first edition. How time flies. Anyway in response to Old Dog's question of if we are the product of the most successful genes, why are we in such turmoil, it's because the object of the selfish gene is just to make more replicas of itself, not to make this a better world. As long as it is replicating itself the selfish gene has no problem with income inequality or war or those unpleasant things that make things miserable for most people
But, as Beagles points out, the selfish gene doesn't need to be competitive all the time, sometimes it makes more sense to cooperate. If all us humans were mega competitive we would still be fighting in the Serengeti. It is good for the sake of the selfish gene if all humans do well, lifting all boats as it were, but then it is better still if everybody around you is nicey nicey and you can take advantage of them, but better for them if they develop genes to dislike people who take advantage of them,
But again you guys, these are metaphors not stories. I can see where in tonight's seminar, unless we are barred from the seminary door for not having the hundred dollar cover charge, where i might use the metaphor, the early bird catches the worm, and see Old Dog crinkle his brow and say what if the later bird is late because he stayed up until midnight the night before inventing a worm detector, which allowed him to find the worms before the early bird could get to them?
You know that story about the competition between Eg and Ig has parallels with the assembly line. Ig was a craftsman, unlike Og, (remember Og?) who was merely putting out arrowheads that were good enough, Ig took pride in his work, made arrowheads of exceptional beauty, and maybe with aesthetic flourishes, he was kind of his own man, taking pride in his work, whereas Eg had no problem in pandering to the masses. A story there, how the assembly line did in the old masters.
Last morning I came across a copy of The Selfish Gene, and there was a banner across the cover, put there no doubt by an ancestor of Ag, announcing this was the fortieth anniversary of the first edition. How time flies. Anyway in response to Old Dog's question of if we are the product of the most successful genes, why are we in such turmoil, it's because the object of the selfish gene is just to make more replicas of itself, not to make this a better world. As long as it is replicating itself the selfish gene has no problem with income inequality or war or those unpleasant things that make things miserable for most people
But, as Beagles points out, the selfish gene doesn't need to be competitive all the time, sometimes it makes more sense to cooperate. If all us humans were mega competitive we would still be fighting in the Serengeti. It is good for the sake of the selfish gene if all humans do well, lifting all boats as it were, but then it is better still if everybody around you is nicey nicey and you can take advantage of them, but better for them if they develop genes to dislike people who take advantage of them,
Thursday, October 27, 2016
The Adaptive Gene
Ken and O.D. both make excellent points about the selfish gene. Sometimes it's advantageous to be competitive, and sometimes it's advantageous to be cooperative. Sometimes the market wants quality, and sometimes the market wants quantity. If you want to be successful in this world, you have to be adaptable. When it's cold, you wear bear skins and build fires. When it's hot, you wear bare skins and go swimming. If your tribe rejects you, you join a different tribe or start one of your own. I doubt that primitive humans gave much thought to spreading their genes around, they were just trying to get laid because it was a fun thing to do. Of course you can't get laid if you're dead, so the first thing you need to do is survive long enough to reach puberty. After that, you do whatever it takes to survive from one day to the next. All other factors being equal, the longer you live, the more chances you will get to spread your genes around, even if you have no idea exactly what a gene is.
I'm not sure that any of this is explains the phenomenon of fandom. That probably has something to do with the way people like to get excited. It was necessary for primitive humans to get excited about stuff, otherwise they wouldn't do anything. While cognitive thinking helps in the planning stage, it is emotion that motivates people to action. At some point, people discovered that you don't have to actually do anything to get excited, that emotion could be generated independent of action. Some other people recognized that there was money to be made from this, and the entertainment business was born.
I have heard both versions of "99 Bottles", and have come to prefer "Take one down, pass it around" because it sounds more proactive than just waiting around for one of those bottles to fall by random chance. I was not familiar with the last verse "Go to the store, get some more", but I like it because it constitutes a logical bridge for starting the song all over again. I don't remember ever getting through all 99 bottles as a kid because one of the adults in the car always shut the song down before that. I supposed that just meant that the song was effective. On long motor trips, if the adults started to get cranky, we could always cheer them up with that song. When one of them shouted "That's enough!" we took it as a sign that the song had accomplished it's purpose so there was no need to continue singing it. I believe it was while driving a school bus that I got to sing the whole song all the way through for the first time. It was on a field trip of some kind, there was a teacher on the bus and, when we completed the song and began to sing it again, she hollered "That's enough!" I guess that teacher took longer than my parents to become cheered up. She must have had a hard life.
I'm not sure that any of this is explains the phenomenon of fandom. That probably has something to do with the way people like to get excited. It was necessary for primitive humans to get excited about stuff, otherwise they wouldn't do anything. While cognitive thinking helps in the planning stage, it is emotion that motivates people to action. At some point, people discovered that you don't have to actually do anything to get excited, that emotion could be generated independent of action. Some other people recognized that there was money to be made from this, and the entertainment business was born.
I have heard both versions of "99 Bottles", and have come to prefer "Take one down, pass it around" because it sounds more proactive than just waiting around for one of those bottles to fall by random chance. I was not familiar with the last verse "Go to the store, get some more", but I like it because it constitutes a logical bridge for starting the song all over again. I don't remember ever getting through all 99 bottles as a kid because one of the adults in the car always shut the song down before that. I supposed that just meant that the song was effective. On long motor trips, if the adults started to get cranky, we could always cheer them up with that song. When one of them shouted "That's enough!" we took it as a sign that the song had accomplished it's purpose so there was no need to continue singing it. I believe it was while driving a school bus that I got to sing the whole song all the way through for the first time. It was on a field trip of some kind, there was a teacher on the bus and, when we completed the song and began to sing it again, she hollered "That's enough!" I guess that teacher took longer than my parents to become cheered up. She must have had a hard life.
No vote for Mr. Fart
It's funny (or pathetic) how some topics mentioned on this forum lure the Old Dog from under the porch to chase a squirrel. In this case, "99 bottles of beer on the wall," a song dating to the mid-20th century. Wait a minute! Weren't we all born in the mid-20th century? What the heck was going on?
Anyhow, there seem to be two variants, "take one down and pass it around" and "if one of those bottles should happen to fall." I don't know which one is the most popular or if there is a regional preference. And I didn't realize there is a final verse when there are "no more bottles of beer on the wall." Apparently it's "go to the store and get some more, 99 bottles of beer on the wall." I've never heard it get to that point and, theoretically, it repeats.
So, why 99 bottles, and what are they doing on the wall? I would think that they should be in a cooler or on ice. Some wise guys have a never-ending version, "Infinite bottles of beer on the wall, if one of those bottles should happen to fall, infinite bottles of beer on the wall."
Damn squirrels.
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Here's another squirrel...at some point in time breast became beast.
This phrase was coined by William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697:
Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I guess folks weren't comfortable mentioning breast in polite company and beast looks almost the same in print. Any other working theories?
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Mr. Beagles, you had ration cards for cigarettes in Berlin? How did that work, did you get a free carton every week? And were you paid in greenbacks, or was their some other currency used? It's confusing to me, thinking about what money was used in the various sectors. Converting between dollars, pounds, francs, and marks would be a big pain in the ass.
Okinawa was easy, money-wise. The US dollar was coin of the realm, used everywhere; no fiddling around with the Japanese yen.
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I don't know whether Ig or Og would be more successful in the arrowhead marketplace. A perfectly good, but cheaper, arrowhead by Ig may outsell the better arrowhead of Og, eventually making Ig the richer and more desirable (cave?)man, thus allowing him more opportunities to, uh, spread his genes. Superior products don't always succeed in the marketplace; maybe it takes Og as much time to make one arrowhead as it does Ig to make a hundred, Og is a fussy jerk, we're starving and we can't wait another week for arrowheads. Ig's arrowheads kill the critters just as dead, and if we lose some, no big deal. They're cheap and we have lots of them. So, whose gene's will get spread the furthest?
I realize I may have completely missed the point of Uncle Ken's comments about the selfish gene; I haven't read the book by Dawkins. But, I ask, if we are now the product of the most successful genes, why are we in such turmoil and things so screwed up? Am I looking through the wrong lens?
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There's definitely a lot of money in fandom. I read that some local bars and taverns are charging up upwards of a hundred bucks cover charge, just to stand around and watch the big games on TV. It'll cost you five hundred to reserve a table. Either the economy is doing really well or some people are really stupid. I'll go with P.T. Barnum on this one.
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And from our good friends at The Atlantic, "Trump also means, especially in British English, to, erm, break wind,"
That sounds about right; I can easily think of him as Mr. Fart.
Anyhow, there seem to be two variants, "take one down and pass it around" and "if one of those bottles should happen to fall." I don't know which one is the most popular or if there is a regional preference. And I didn't realize there is a final verse when there are "no more bottles of beer on the wall." Apparently it's "go to the store and get some more, 99 bottles of beer on the wall." I've never heard it get to that point and, theoretically, it repeats.
So, why 99 bottles, and what are they doing on the wall? I would think that they should be in a cooler or on ice. Some wise guys have a never-ending version, "Infinite bottles of beer on the wall, if one of those bottles should happen to fall, infinite bottles of beer on the wall."
Damn squirrels.
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Here's another squirrel...at some point in time breast became beast.
This phrase was coined by William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697:
Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I guess folks weren't comfortable mentioning breast in polite company and beast looks almost the same in print. Any other working theories?
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Mr. Beagles, you had ration cards for cigarettes in Berlin? How did that work, did you get a free carton every week? And were you paid in greenbacks, or was their some other currency used? It's confusing to me, thinking about what money was used in the various sectors. Converting between dollars, pounds, francs, and marks would be a big pain in the ass.
Okinawa was easy, money-wise. The US dollar was coin of the realm, used everywhere; no fiddling around with the Japanese yen.
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I don't know whether Ig or Og would be more successful in the arrowhead marketplace. A perfectly good, but cheaper, arrowhead by Ig may outsell the better arrowhead of Og, eventually making Ig the richer and more desirable (cave?)man, thus allowing him more opportunities to, uh, spread his genes. Superior products don't always succeed in the marketplace; maybe it takes Og as much time to make one arrowhead as it does Ig to make a hundred, Og is a fussy jerk, we're starving and we can't wait another week for arrowheads. Ig's arrowheads kill the critters just as dead, and if we lose some, no big deal. They're cheap and we have lots of them. So, whose gene's will get spread the furthest?
I realize I may have completely missed the point of Uncle Ken's comments about the selfish gene; I haven't read the book by Dawkins. But, I ask, if we are now the product of the most successful genes, why are we in such turmoil and things so screwed up? Am I looking through the wrong lens?
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There's definitely a lot of money in fandom. I read that some local bars and taverns are charging up upwards of a hundred bucks cover charge, just to stand around and watch the big games on TV. It'll cost you five hundred to reserve a table. Either the economy is doing really well or some people are really stupid. I'll go with P.T. Barnum on this one.
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And from our good friends at The Atlantic, "Trump also means, especially in British English, to, erm, break wind,"
That sounds about right; I can easily think of him as Mr. Fart.
the three amigos ain't gonna study war no more
As Beagles knows I am a follower of evolutionary biology, aka, the selfish gene. The theory being that if we want to analyze our behavior we take into consideration how that behavior would lead to us having more offspring and hence spread our genes. Spreading our genes is our sole purpose in life, at least as far as the gene is concerned, and those with genes that aren't as favorable for passing out as many copies of themselves are genes that fade away. It's not quite that simple, but I can give a lecture lately if anybody wants one.
One sees right away where competitiveness helps. If Ig is just concerned with making an arrowhead that is perfectly good and doesn't care if it's the best in the tribe Ig won't do as well as Og who has more of the competitive gene, and aims to make the best arrowhead. He will be more of a star in the tribe, will attract the most beautiful (the best genes) women in the tribe and will be able to fool around more and spread his genes around more, and those are the genes that are around today and not those of Ig.
So that kind of competitiveness makes sense. But sports fandom is different in that the fan has nothing to do with the success of the team and the fan doesn't get any material advantage out of his team winning. And like I said it doesn't matter who owns the team or what the players are, so why is sport fandom so prevalent?
I suspect a connection with nationalism/ I can see where one would be loyal to their family, their neighbors, maybe their town, even the area not too far from the town, but when it comes to a big entity like a nation full of people you can't possibly know, and lands you will never get around to seeing, why does one's heart pound when the flag goes by?
The three amigos were like kids everywhere, certainly like me when I was at Tonti grade school,. they just wanted to have fun, they wanted to goof off, tell jokes, possibly impress the fairer sex so that ten years hence they could spread their genes with them. What I wanted them to do, was some kind of work that the regular teacher had written down in her lesson plan, and mainly not to disrupt the class with their jokes and goofing off. They briefly fell under the spell of the game, following something like fandom, but when they realized there was nothing in it for them the jig was up for me.
You know you could stretch that into an anti war parable, compare it to the French and German soldiers who fraternized on Christmas during WW I, when they realized that this war had nothing in it for either of them.
I guess singing is involved in that stuff somewhere, we have our anthems, and our Go Cubs Go's (Won last night, series tied at one each). Well music has the power to calm the savage beast, but also to make the calm beast more savage.
One sees right away where competitiveness helps. If Ig is just concerned with making an arrowhead that is perfectly good and doesn't care if it's the best in the tribe Ig won't do as well as Og who has more of the competitive gene, and aims to make the best arrowhead. He will be more of a star in the tribe, will attract the most beautiful (the best genes) women in the tribe and will be able to fool around more and spread his genes around more, and those are the genes that are around today and not those of Ig.
So that kind of competitiveness makes sense. But sports fandom is different in that the fan has nothing to do with the success of the team and the fan doesn't get any material advantage out of his team winning. And like I said it doesn't matter who owns the team or what the players are, so why is sport fandom so prevalent?
I suspect a connection with nationalism/ I can see where one would be loyal to their family, their neighbors, maybe their town, even the area not too far from the town, but when it comes to a big entity like a nation full of people you can't possibly know, and lands you will never get around to seeing, why does one's heart pound when the flag goes by?
The three amigos were like kids everywhere, certainly like me when I was at Tonti grade school,. they just wanted to have fun, they wanted to goof off, tell jokes, possibly impress the fairer sex so that ten years hence they could spread their genes with them. What I wanted them to do, was some kind of work that the regular teacher had written down in her lesson plan, and mainly not to disrupt the class with their jokes and goofing off. They briefly fell under the spell of the game, following something like fandom, but when they realized there was nothing in it for them the jig was up for me.
You know you could stretch that into an anti war parable, compare it to the French and German soldiers who fraternized on Christmas during WW I, when they realized that this war had nothing in it for either of them.
I guess singing is involved in that stuff somewhere, we have our anthems, and our Go Cubs Go's (Won last night, series tied at one each). Well music has the power to calm the savage beast, but also to make the calm beast more savage.
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
Hooray For Our Side!
I think that humans are just competitive by nature. You see it in war, sports, business, and politics. Like most traits of human nature, though, some people have more of it in them than others. My competitive instinct must be pretty low because I care more about what I'm doing than what everybody else is doing. If I do something well and somebody else does it even better, then more power to them.
I'm not sure what motivated Ken's three amigos. They might have just not been interested in the class and were trying to go their own way, or they may have been competing with the teacher for dominance or the spotlight of attention. Kids that age are always trying to draw attention to themselves, and some of them never do outgrow it.
Music is different, or at least it should be. My daughter played in the band in school and, while they had competitive events, I think that she was more concerned with playing her best than with winning. When I was a kid, we used to sing a lot. We sang in church, we sang in school, and we sang in Boy Scouts. It seemed to have the effect of bonding the group together. I tried to get the kids to sing on my school bus, but they usually broke up into sub groups, each one singing a different song and trying to drown the other groups out. The one time I got them all to sing together was when we did "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall". I was so proud of them that I keyed my radio mike so the whole buss fleet could hear them. My boss was not pleased. For one thing, he said, the radio is for important communication, not for entertainment. For another thing, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" is not an appropriate song to teach children. Hell, I didn't have to teach that song to them, they all knew it already. Besides, it's a kids' song in the first place. You ever hear adults sing that song? I hadn't sung that song since I was a kid myself and, for a moment, it made me feel young again.
The more I think about it, that wasn't a message from Microsoft that I got yesterday, it was a message from the Windows program in my own computer. My computer didn't crash, just my Windows did. There must be a diagnostic or something in there that has the ability to troubleshoot things like that. Those guys that call you on the telephone are all scammers. I tell them, "Shut up and leave me alone!", and then I hang up.
I'm not sure what motivated Ken's three amigos. They might have just not been interested in the class and were trying to go their own way, or they may have been competing with the teacher for dominance or the spotlight of attention. Kids that age are always trying to draw attention to themselves, and some of them never do outgrow it.
Music is different, or at least it should be. My daughter played in the band in school and, while they had competitive events, I think that she was more concerned with playing her best than with winning. When I was a kid, we used to sing a lot. We sang in church, we sang in school, and we sang in Boy Scouts. It seemed to have the effect of bonding the group together. I tried to get the kids to sing on my school bus, but they usually broke up into sub groups, each one singing a different song and trying to drown the other groups out. The one time I got them all to sing together was when we did "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall". I was so proud of them that I keyed my radio mike so the whole buss fleet could hear them. My boss was not pleased. For one thing, he said, the radio is for important communication, not for entertainment. For another thing, "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" is not an appropriate song to teach children. Hell, I didn't have to teach that song to them, they all knew it already. Besides, it's a kids' song in the first place. You ever hear adults sing that song? I hadn't sung that song since I was a kid myself and, for a moment, it made me feel young again.
The more I think about it, that wasn't a message from Microsoft that I got yesterday, it was a message from the Windows program in my own computer. My computer didn't crash, just my Windows did. There must be a diagnostic or something in there that has the ability to troubleshoot things like that. Those guys that call you on the telephone are all scammers. I tell them, "Shut up and leave me alone!", and then I hang up.
winning for the team
Kind of a sad tale on old Bobby Vee. Had that historic break coming in on that historic plane crash, but then just turned out to be one of those teen idol types. Remember the teen idol era that went roughly between The King and the Beatles, the dark age of rock and roll? Apparently that tie with Scratchy Bobby was a real thing,not just a one line throwaway, as Scatchy Bobby said it numerous times,and, if wiki is to be believed, and if not we are in deep doo doo here at the Institute, are we not, even played briefly in Bobby Vee's band under the name of Gunnn or something.
That microsoft story sounds fishy to me. Basically I wonder how they contacted you if your computer was down. I used to get these phone calls from these guys with heavy Asian Indian accents and a lot of noise in the background saying that they were monitoring my computer and had found some problem with it and wanted me to go to some website so they could fix it, at which point I got suspicious and asked for their number so I could call them back, at which point they hung up.
Let me retell the tale of the three amigos. It was a fourth or fifth grade class, that intermediate stage when kids are transitioning between cute little dickens and sullen thugs. These three boys were kind of troublemakers, but not too bad, kind of amusing, reminded me of myself at that young age. And I remembered a game one of my teachers at Tonti pulled on my class when I was about that age. She divided the class into two groups, left and right I think. And whichever side answered a question first, that side got five points or something. I remember thinking at the time that the game was stupid, but also noticing that most of the class took it hook line and sinker.
And so did this class, and I had them in the palm of my grizzled substitute teacher hand. But not quite the three amigos, they were talking too loudly among themselves and to put a stop to that I fined their team five points. At first it seemed to work, the class gasped and their teammates frowned at them. But their little brains were ticking, and when they were at it again, I threatened to fine their team ten points, and then one of them said why not twenty, and another said fifty, and then I heard murmurs of what do we get if we win this game. Busted. I quickly moved on to something else.
But this is kind of what I was getting on with about fandom. It's this very strong, but irrational force which I think has been deeply embedded in our genes in our long crawl from the watery depths to Wrigley Field. I think there is something there. I wonder if Beagle's daughter was ever in like the high school swim team, and if he rooted for her.
That microsoft story sounds fishy to me. Basically I wonder how they contacted you if your computer was down. I used to get these phone calls from these guys with heavy Asian Indian accents and a lot of noise in the background saying that they were monitoring my computer and had found some problem with it and wanted me to go to some website so they could fix it, at which point I got suspicious and asked for their number so I could call them back, at which point they hung up.
Let me retell the tale of the three amigos. It was a fourth or fifth grade class, that intermediate stage when kids are transitioning between cute little dickens and sullen thugs. These three boys were kind of troublemakers, but not too bad, kind of amusing, reminded me of myself at that young age. And I remembered a game one of my teachers at Tonti pulled on my class when I was about that age. She divided the class into two groups, left and right I think. And whichever side answered a question first, that side got five points or something. I remember thinking at the time that the game was stupid, but also noticing that most of the class took it hook line and sinker.
And so did this class, and I had them in the palm of my grizzled substitute teacher hand. But not quite the three amigos, they were talking too loudly among themselves and to put a stop to that I fined their team five points. At first it seemed to work, the class gasped and their teammates frowned at them. But their little brains were ticking, and when they were at it again, I threatened to fine their team ten points, and then one of them said why not twenty, and another said fifty, and then I heard murmurs of what do we get if we win this game. Busted. I quickly moved on to something else.
But this is kind of what I was getting on with about fandom. It's this very strong, but irrational force which I think has been deeply embedded in our genes in our long crawl from the watery depths to Wrigley Field. I think there is something there. I wonder if Beagle's daughter was ever in like the high school swim team, and if he rooted for her.
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
I'm Still Here
Something came up and I didn't get online Thursday evening. I wrote something Friday, but not on Monday, because I have absolutely no interest in sports.
My computer shut down on me this evening and didn't want to start back up. I got this message from Microsoft that said there was a problem, and asking me if I wanted them to fix it. I said yes and, after a few minutes they said that it might be fixed. They told me to try to start it and, if it didn't work, they would try again to fix it. Well, it seems to have worked, at least for now. I guess I took a chance because it might not have really been Microsoft calling, but the thing was no good to me as it was. I read on Wiki the other day that some hackers got into some kind of server network and crashed computers all over the world a few days previous. The big servers claimed to have everything restored, but maybe my problem was related to that. Maybe a few bugs had evaded he exterminators and were hiding out in my system.
Firearm deer season isn't till November 15, but everything comes sooner the older I get, so I'm trying to get ready now. I spent most of the spring and summer putting up firewood, and I've got that done. I made the first fire of the season this evening. We use the gas heat from late April until about now because the wood fires are too hard to control in mild weather. If you make it too hot in the house, your hypothetical wife gets really upset, or so I've been told.
My computer shut down on me this evening and didn't want to start back up. I got this message from Microsoft that said there was a problem, and asking me if I wanted them to fix it. I said yes and, after a few minutes they said that it might be fixed. They told me to try to start it and, if it didn't work, they would try again to fix it. Well, it seems to have worked, at least for now. I guess I took a chance because it might not have really been Microsoft calling, but the thing was no good to me as it was. I read on Wiki the other day that some hackers got into some kind of server network and crashed computers all over the world a few days previous. The big servers claimed to have everything restored, but maybe my problem was related to that. Maybe a few bugs had evaded he exterminators and were hiding out in my system.
Firearm deer season isn't till November 15, but everything comes sooner the older I get, so I'm trying to get ready now. I spent most of the spring and summer putting up firewood, and I've got that done. I made the first fire of the season this evening. We use the gas heat from late April until about now because the wood fires are too hard to control in mild weather. If you make it too hot in the house, your hypothetical wife gets really upset, or so I've been told.
The night has a thousand eyes
I eagerly await the next post from Mr. Beagles, and hope that all is well in Cheboygan county. His absence has thrown me off my rhythm, not that I mind having discussions with Uncle Ken. But hell, we yap back and forth enough as it is during the Friday seminars; the third voice is needed for balance. Must be hunting season or time to lay up firewood for the pending winter; that'll keep a fella busy.
-----
Meanwhile, I've been mulling over the nature of fandom and found a good definition: the fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc., regarded collectively as a community or subculture.
That explains my lack of enthusiasm about many things; not having a sense of belonging to the community or subculture. I like a lot of stuff, you could even say I am a fan, but not to the extent that I consider myself part of something bigger, a collective embracing many other like minded souls. Maybe I'm a bit alienated and ask too many questions, not trusting the wisdom of the crowd. Not sure if that makes me a weirdo, crank, or just another benign befuddled geezer, nor do I care very much at this point. I must have a natural immunity to peer group pressure, being curious about what happens when things are looked at or done a little differently. You never know what you'll discover or figure out...
-----
So, there's a big game tonight. I may even watch it, with a nice background of music instead of the hype and audio hoopla provided by the announcers on Fox. Having the Cubs in the World Series has provided a very positive result in that the local news stations are devoting about half their air time to the team, with the antics of the Chump and Big Girl getting short shrift; certainly a welcome diversion.
And here's another term you can toss out at the next cocktail soiree: the Kinsley gaffe—accidentally telling the truth. Don't know where I read it, but I had to make a note of it as it seems appropriate for many conversations these days.
-----
R.I.P. Bobby Vee. I wonder if Dylan will attend the funeral.
-----
Meanwhile, I've been mulling over the nature of fandom and found a good definition: the fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc., regarded collectively as a community or subculture.
That explains my lack of enthusiasm about many things; not having a sense of belonging to the community or subculture. I like a lot of stuff, you could even say I am a fan, but not to the extent that I consider myself part of something bigger, a collective embracing many other like minded souls. Maybe I'm a bit alienated and ask too many questions, not trusting the wisdom of the crowd. Not sure if that makes me a weirdo, crank, or just another benign befuddled geezer, nor do I care very much at this point. I must have a natural immunity to peer group pressure, being curious about what happens when things are looked at or done a little differently. You never know what you'll discover or figure out...
-----
So, there's a big game tonight. I may even watch it, with a nice background of music instead of the hype and audio hoopla provided by the announcers on Fox. Having the Cubs in the World Series has provided a very positive result in that the local news stations are devoting about half their air time to the team, with the antics of the Chump and Big Girl getting short shrift; certainly a welcome diversion.
And here's another term you can toss out at the next cocktail soiree: the Kinsley gaffe—accidentally telling the truth. Don't know where I read it, but I had to make a note of it as it seems appropriate for many conversations these days.
-----
R.I.P. Bobby Vee. I wonder if Dylan will attend the funeral.
fandom
What is it they have been saying about Dumbo and his Idiots marching on the White House if the obviously rigged system fails to put him astride the nation like a fat old man with a pocketful of tic tacs on some beauty queen? Oh yeah the peaceful transition of power. I too was surprised at only six arrested and to my knowledge no injuries. It is almost given that when any sports team wins the big prize that there will be some rioting and some looting and maybe a fatality or two..
I think the Cubs fans were maybe just too stunned.to make much more of a ruckus than sing Go Cubs Go over and over in a drunken stupor/ It's interesting how the lame stream local media sends reporters out to interview Cub fandom, which turns out to be anybody wearing anything blue with a red C, as if they were some strangers in our midst, and suddenly this one person is the voice of all Cubdom.
But what is it to be a sportsfan, more particularly to be a fan of a particular team. We all know some guys who could tell you who what third baseman led the National league in triples in 1971, but there are also fans who couldn't tell you who played third for the Cubs this year but that are still big fans.
I'll tell you a shameful secret, Sometime in the late fifties I decided that I had had enough Cubbie suffering, all my friends were White Sox fans, and the Sox clearly had a superior team so I decided to become a White Sox fan, I was one with my friends and I enjoyed more victories than defeats, but somehow it didn't last even a season.
As far as I can tell Beagles and Old Dog are immune to this sort of fandoim, Beagles in particular appears to have no interest at all, Old Dog might might well say something like, Jolly good lads, if he had an English accent, which he doesn't, but I don't think he would experience the white knuckle grasp of the remote followed by tossing it at the ceiling should victory occur.
But I am affected by this fandom, not for the Bears or the Bulls or the Fighting Illini. Just for the Cubs, and I look inside myself and I can't find out why.
I hope Beagles is ok, not like him to miss a post without some written excuse.
I think the Cubs fans were maybe just too stunned.to make much more of a ruckus than sing Go Cubs Go over and over in a drunken stupor/ It's interesting how the lame stream local media sends reporters out to interview Cub fandom, which turns out to be anybody wearing anything blue with a red C, as if they were some strangers in our midst, and suddenly this one person is the voice of all Cubdom.
But what is it to be a sportsfan, more particularly to be a fan of a particular team. We all know some guys who could tell you who what third baseman led the National league in triples in 1971, but there are also fans who couldn't tell you who played third for the Cubs this year but that are still big fans.
I'll tell you a shameful secret, Sometime in the late fifties I decided that I had had enough Cubbie suffering, all my friends were White Sox fans, and the Sox clearly had a superior team so I decided to become a White Sox fan, I was one with my friends and I enjoyed more victories than defeats, but somehow it didn't last even a season.
As far as I can tell Beagles and Old Dog are immune to this sort of fandoim, Beagles in particular appears to have no interest at all, Old Dog might might well say something like, Jolly good lads, if he had an English accent, which he doesn't, but I don't think he would experience the white knuckle grasp of the remote followed by tossing it at the ceiling should victory occur.
But I am affected by this fandom, not for the Bears or the Bulls or the Fighting Illini. Just for the Cubs, and I look inside myself and I can't find out why.
I hope Beagles is ok, not like him to miss a post without some written excuse.
Monday, October 24, 2016
Wait 'til next week!
Not much can be said today. Reality has shifted beyond my comprehension; the Cubs are in the World Series. A known constant in my life has been proven false and I don't know what to make of it.
It's a good thing, especially for all the long suffering fans, but if they win the series it could be the end of their mystique and charm. They will be just another baseball team, no longer unique and a source of optimism against all odds. Cub fans have always been heroic and defiant: Wait 'til next year! I fear that will change, and not for the better. Regardless, I hope they win.
Chicago looked awfully civilized this weekend. A reported 300,000 people in the streets around Wrigley Field, with only 6 arrests. Seems impossible unless the police were being generous, anticipating larger crowds yet to come, win or lose.
Ticket prices are insane: average is $7200. More than $100 to park in some guys driveway? Yikes! Capitalism in action; whatever the market will bear and it bears a lot. Strike while the iron is hot, they say, and I can't blame them.
It's a good thing, especially for all the long suffering fans, but if they win the series it could be the end of their mystique and charm. They will be just another baseball team, no longer unique and a source of optimism against all odds. Cub fans have always been heroic and defiant: Wait 'til next year! I fear that will change, and not for the better. Regardless, I hope they win.
Chicago looked awfully civilized this weekend. A reported 300,000 people in the streets around Wrigley Field, with only 6 arrests. Seems impossible unless the police were being generous, anticipating larger crowds yet to come, win or lose.
Ticket prices are insane: average is $7200. More than $100 to park in some guys driveway? Yikes! Capitalism in action; whatever the market will bear and it bears a lot. Strike while the iron is hot, they say, and I can't blame them.
cubs
I don't know how it started, maybe out of some kind of contrariness, like I always wanted to be left handed, but way back in Gage Park I was a Cub fan, It made no sense. All my friends were Sox fans, Comiskey Park was just a short bus ride away whereas to travel to Wrigley, you had to take a bus downtown and then take the exotic el train to Wrigley from there, the Cubs were always fighting the Phillies for seventh place while the Sox were behind only the hated Yankees, except for that one year.
But there it was. When I went to college and became a hippie I lost my fandom, too square, but sometime in the fall of 1969 in Herrin Illinois I walked out of my trailer with my transistor radio and there were the Cubs.
When I came back to Champaign to tend bar I was surprised to find that most of the customers were Cub fans, It was like when I was a kid and we got off the el at Addison, where did all these Cub fans come from?
And I have stuck with them ever since, loveable losers, blah, blah, blah, and I guess I acquired some of that bitterness. Victory could never be ours, in fact the beloved Cubs became tormentors, it seemed like, like they were almost conspiring to lose, to add to the pain of their fans, to punish them for being so stupid.
And then the current team, everyone picked us to take it all, and the first half of the season we ran away with it, and then in the middle of the season, that awful slump, the bitterness came back, those bastards, they were toying with us again. But after a couple weeks it faded and we were back to being supermen again.
We won the NL east with the best record in all of baseball, we were teens ahead of those hateful Cardinals, we polished off the Giants like crud from our cleats, and expected to do the same with the Dodgers, but suddenly we were behind (behind???) in the series 1 to 2, our bats cold and lifeless, but then our bats came alive in the next two games and Saturday night I was in the downstairs bar when our double play gave us the series and there was all this screaming. Where was it coming from? Oh, it was coming from me.
Where does it come from? Was I any richer, smarter, younger? No, no, no. Are the Cubs, like the democrats, after their upcoming victory, going to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity? No. They are all millionaires, you know they are all Republicans.
So I don't know, it's a peculiar thing. I hate the current owners of the Cubs. I love the players of course, but if the Cubs traded them all away and got new ones I would love the new ones, If they left Wrigley, as they sometimes hinted in the bad old days, for a spanking new up to date ballpark in distant suburbia in a sea of parking lots, would I stop loving them? Maybe.
Friday, October 21, 2016
Use the Force, Ken
I remember when they used to tell us to steer into a skid, but I don't believe that I've ever done it. When you're out of control, the first thing you need to do is take your foot completely off the gas and don't touch the brake unless you absolutely have to. After that, your instincts take over, and they will tell you to steer in the direction you want to go. If you overcorrect, just cut the wheel back the other way, only not so far this time. I don't know when they changed the rules to make them consistent with common sense, but I'm pretty sure that they did because, the last time I read something about it, it said to do exactly what I have always done by instinct.
I don't know what to think about the Corvair. I knew a guy who owned one, and he really liked it. Since Nadar wrote his book, I have read both pro and con about it and I don't know who to believe. I suppose it doesn't matter anymore because they stopped making them a long time ago. The only thing I know about Nadar is that he has never worked for any government agency. He called himself a "consumer advocate", and a lot of people assumed that was some kind of government job, but it wasn't. Nadar was just a self appointed expert who thought his mission in life was to tell everybody else what to do. I hate people like that!
We had good chow in Berlin. Of course it wasn't like home, but nothing ever is. I don't think that Smitty ever took food out of our mouths to sell because we always had plenty. He probably just sold off the surplus instead of throwing it away, and I can't fault him for that. Like I said, nobody cared about those C-ration cigarettes because they could get regular cigarettes at the PX for cheap. We had ration cards, but they allowed us a carton a week, which was plenty for most guys. If they wanted more, they could buy them one pack at a time for a higher price, which was still pretty cheap. I seem to remember that a carton cost a dollar fifty, and the single packs went for a quarter a piece.
I worked briefly at a pig farm when I was in Alaska, and we used to get edible garbage from a nearby military post to feed our hogs. After the hogs cleaned out their troughs, we would frequently find eating utensils left behind. We put them into a burlap sack that was hung on a fence post and, when the sack was full, we would take it back to the military base, where they would trade us either coffee or sugar for it, pound for pound. I suppose that was easier than watching over the guys to prevent them from throwing their silverware in with the edible garbage. I don't think that was ever a problem in Berlin, at least I never witnessed it.
I don't know what to think about the Corvair. I knew a guy who owned one, and he really liked it. Since Nadar wrote his book, I have read both pro and con about it and I don't know who to believe. I suppose it doesn't matter anymore because they stopped making them a long time ago. The only thing I know about Nadar is that he has never worked for any government agency. He called himself a "consumer advocate", and a lot of people assumed that was some kind of government job, but it wasn't. Nadar was just a self appointed expert who thought his mission in life was to tell everybody else what to do. I hate people like that!
We had good chow in Berlin. Of course it wasn't like home, but nothing ever is. I don't think that Smitty ever took food out of our mouths to sell because we always had plenty. He probably just sold off the surplus instead of throwing it away, and I can't fault him for that. Like I said, nobody cared about those C-ration cigarettes because they could get regular cigarettes at the PX for cheap. We had ration cards, but they allowed us a carton a week, which was plenty for most guys. If they wanted more, they could buy them one pack at a time for a higher price, which was still pretty cheap. I seem to remember that a carton cost a dollar fifty, and the single packs went for a quarter a piece.
I worked briefly at a pig farm when I was in Alaska, and we used to get edible garbage from a nearby military post to feed our hogs. After the hogs cleaned out their troughs, we would frequently find eating utensils left behind. We put them into a burlap sack that was hung on a fence post and, when the sack was full, we would take it back to the military base, where they would trade us either coffee or sugar for it, pound for pound. I suppose that was easier than watching over the guys to prevent them from throwing their silverware in with the edible garbage. I don't think that was ever a problem in Berlin, at least I never witnessed it.
the lonely bull
A discussion of mess hall food with no mention of saltpeter? It was common knowledge that they were putting it in the mashed potatoes of our dorm food. Not that any of us ate fewer mashed potatoes because it clearly didn't have much effect to note the nightly barrage of binoculars aimed at the woman's dormitory across the lawn.
When my Corvair rolled there were four of us inside which pretty well filled it up and the doc said that was a good thing because we bounced against each others soft fleshy bodies rather than the sharp metal of the interior.
I remember before buckling up was mandatory. You generally wouldn't buckle up if the driver didn't because wouldn't you rather have a concussion than be thought of as chickenshit? I was glad when they made it mandatory, because than you had a good excuse for not wanting to have a concussion, you didn't want to get a ticket.
I can understand watching a ballgame with the sound off, but I don't understand watching a debate that way even if Mahler is having a marathon of his greatest hits. As a veteran of the other two debates I have to say this one was not that different, although I would say that Trump's tantrums have been increasing throughout,. The pundits were mostly saying the big girl, almost sure to win now, would play it safe, which is her nature,
But maybe Dumbo was right, she is a nasty woman. She couldn't help baiting the bear, or bull, I like the toreador image better, the raging bull. Now who has blood coming out of his eyes? Her pantsuit should have had a short jacket, and epaulets, and tons of sequins. You know Dumbo's handlers had patted and rubbed and soothed him, and told him to just stay cool, just bring up these points, ignore the tasty worm, the swirling cape, He plodded out, stood straight at attention like a third grader on the auditorium stage, muttered some of his talking points, his handlers must have been hugging each other,
But then she unfurled the cape, tossed the insult that cannot be ignored, actually in Dumbo's case no insult can be ignored, and Dumbo was mired in the dust and the mud. On the computer that little thingamajig which showed how many men on base, how many outs, balls, strikes, updating itself in a herky jerky motion was showing more good news. The Cubs, down 2 to 1 in the playoff series, their bats made of whiffle, suddenly came alive. A rally here a rally there, up ten to two. Meanwhile Dumbo, covered with dirt hoisted himself up to make that totally uncalled for, basically nonsensical, offensive to even his biggest fans, declaration that he would not accept the results if he lost.
The hour was late. I went to bed and slept the sleep of the just.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
As he circles the drain
An old theory of mine was that the quality of food in the mess hall was directly proportional to the girth of the mess sergeant. If you had a skinny mess sergeant the food usually sucked, except for breakfasts which were difficult to screw up, although they tried.
Sadly, our mess sergeant was as skinny as a rail and he, too, had some shady deals going on. We were supposed to get steak once a month or so, but they usually ended up in the trunk of his car. That was the rumor; maybe we weren't supposed to get any steak at all.
There was something about the military life that encouraged a lot of wheeling and dealing, just like you see on TV and in the movies. Schemes were always afoot, guys working an angle. Supply sergeants and guys in the motor pool were considered particularly sketchy, but I have no direct knowledge. Could just be more rumor.
But one pal of mine had a very lucrative business lending money, "20 for 25." You could borrow twenty bucks and repay twenty-five on payday. Business was brisk; at the end of his tour he was clearing a couple of hundred a month and never had to spend any army pay, which he had been saving. When his ETS (expiration of term of service, for Uncle Ken) arrived, he shut down his business and went on a spending spree. High end stereo equipment, cameras, electronics, and a BSA Victor motorcycle were all on his shopping list, which were all dutifully shipped to the US, courtesy of Uncle Sam. E-5s (rank) and above had their stuff shipped back home gratis, regardless of quantity. Quite a deal, and not bad for a guy who was drafted.
Another buddy of mine bought a Datsun 240-Z, just when they first came out. Very sweet car, and it was also shipped back to the states, free of charge. Rank had its privileges. He had a tough army job, teaching ceramics at one of the Special Services craft shops. Civilian clothes required, naturally.
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I was never a big fan of Ralph Nader because his book killed the Corvair. He was correct in his assessment of the handling problems, but they were corrected by the time the book came out. Pre-911 Porsches (and VW Beetles of the same era) had the same problem due to the rear engine/swing axle arrangement, but they were just considered tricky to drive, requiring skill.
But Nader was right on the button regarding the secondary impact of auto collisions, with the occupants flying around inside the car. Hence, the federally mandated installation of seat belts in US cars in 1968, a couple of years after Unsafe At Any Speed. Funny thing is that seat belt usage wasn't required by law until the mid '80s. New York was the first state to require you to buckle up. You had to have them, but you didn't have to use them for fifteen years. God bless America.
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Another fine debate last night; this time I was listening to Mahler on the local classical music station. It looked like a reasonable and polite situation, with only a few interruptions by His Orangeness. He did appear tense, though, clutching the lectern and looked a bit unhinged in the last half hour.
That's what I thought until afterwards, when I tuned in the local news and went online. Christ on a crutch! In the parlance of barracks talk, "He stepped on his dick!" Of course, he thinks he won the debate, and bless his pointy little head. Delusions of his sort are unprecedented. He will fail, his businesses will fail, and it won't be long until he is just another shabby old guy feeding pigeons in the park, forgotten by all. One can only hope.
Sadly, our mess sergeant was as skinny as a rail and he, too, had some shady deals going on. We were supposed to get steak once a month or so, but they usually ended up in the trunk of his car. That was the rumor; maybe we weren't supposed to get any steak at all.
There was something about the military life that encouraged a lot of wheeling and dealing, just like you see on TV and in the movies. Schemes were always afoot, guys working an angle. Supply sergeants and guys in the motor pool were considered particularly sketchy, but I have no direct knowledge. Could just be more rumor.
But one pal of mine had a very lucrative business lending money, "20 for 25." You could borrow twenty bucks and repay twenty-five on payday. Business was brisk; at the end of his tour he was clearing a couple of hundred a month and never had to spend any army pay, which he had been saving. When his ETS (expiration of term of service, for Uncle Ken) arrived, he shut down his business and went on a spending spree. High end stereo equipment, cameras, electronics, and a BSA Victor motorcycle were all on his shopping list, which were all dutifully shipped to the US, courtesy of Uncle Sam. E-5s (rank) and above had their stuff shipped back home gratis, regardless of quantity. Quite a deal, and not bad for a guy who was drafted.
Another buddy of mine bought a Datsun 240-Z, just when they first came out. Very sweet car, and it was also shipped back to the states, free of charge. Rank had its privileges. He had a tough army job, teaching ceramics at one of the Special Services craft shops. Civilian clothes required, naturally.
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I was never a big fan of Ralph Nader because his book killed the Corvair. He was correct in his assessment of the handling problems, but they were corrected by the time the book came out. Pre-911 Porsches (and VW Beetles of the same era) had the same problem due to the rear engine/swing axle arrangement, but they were just considered tricky to drive, requiring skill.
But Nader was right on the button regarding the secondary impact of auto collisions, with the occupants flying around inside the car. Hence, the federally mandated installation of seat belts in US cars in 1968, a couple of years after Unsafe At Any Speed. Funny thing is that seat belt usage wasn't required by law until the mid '80s. New York was the first state to require you to buckle up. You had to have them, but you didn't have to use them for fifteen years. God bless America.
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Another fine debate last night; this time I was listening to Mahler on the local classical music station. It looked like a reasonable and polite situation, with only a few interruptions by His Orangeness. He did appear tense, though, clutching the lectern and looked a bit unhinged in the last half hour.
That's what I thought until afterwards, when I tuned in the local news and went online. Christ on a crutch! In the parlance of barracks talk, "He stepped on his dick!" Of course, he thinks he won the debate, and bless his pointy little head. Delusions of his sort are unprecedented. He will fail, his businesses will fail, and it won't be long until he is just another shabby old guy feeding pigeons in the park, forgotten by all. One can only hope.
three is not enough
I was listening to an interview with Ralph Nader yesterday. Unsafe at any Speed. I used to drive a Corvair, not very long though, after about three months I got a flat tire and steered into it like I remembered they had told me somewhere and the next thing I knew we were rolling over down the highway, just the way Ralph said it would happen.
He seemed like a good enough guy, though a little peculiar. He seemed to get more peculiar off by the side of the road of American politics. By the time he cost Gore the election (maybe) I had pretty much had it with him.
I think he was on as an advocate for a third party because of that run. I wonder why they didn't invite Ross Perot. How come nobody ever asks Ross anything these days? There was a cubism poster in the art room wall last Saturday and I asked the teacher, if cubism was such a great idea, how come nobody paints that way anymore? She didn't have an answer, just looked at me like I was an idiot. I get that a lot.
But I digress, Ralph was saying the big girl, she's a hawk and cozies up to Wall Street, and I had to allow as how that was so. He said Dumbo was bull goose loony, and I couldn't agree more. But then I thought of that what's an Aleppo guy, and that green woman who has an angry fanatic look in her eyes, and then Ralph himself, who when asked a simple question, are the big girl and Dumbo equally bad, squirmed around like a worm on a hook even though he isn't actually running for anything, and it occurred to me, that three parties are probably not enough, seems like we need to have maybe six before we can find one to nominate somebody we like.
Even though the Cubs were playing a desperate game only two from being eliminated and goat's breath was swirling around them like a west coast hurricane, I watched last night's debate.
More of the same. The big girl smirking, Dumbo scowling like a bull with a couple of those lances stuck into his ornery hide. There have been a few things from Wikileaks that Dumbo might have used, but he just wandered randomly from topic to topic. He has no attention span. Right at the end he was asked if he lost would he accept the results and he said maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't, which is kind of like saying that he doesn't accept the peaceful exchange of power, which is one of the things we Americans brag about at the end of every election.
A big deal was made of that in the spin room. And I suppose it is a big deal, but really, what is Dumbo going to do? Lead a pack of his crackpots to the White House and break all the nice crockery? A lot has been made, especially by those of my ilk, of comparisons between Dumbo and Hitler's rise to power. But there is nothing like the brownshirts among Dumbo backers. I think they'll just fade away like, I dunno, cubism.
He seemed like a good enough guy, though a little peculiar. He seemed to get more peculiar off by the side of the road of American politics. By the time he cost Gore the election (maybe) I had pretty much had it with him.
I think he was on as an advocate for a third party because of that run. I wonder why they didn't invite Ross Perot. How come nobody ever asks Ross anything these days? There was a cubism poster in the art room wall last Saturday and I asked the teacher, if cubism was such a great idea, how come nobody paints that way anymore? She didn't have an answer, just looked at me like I was an idiot. I get that a lot.
But I digress, Ralph was saying the big girl, she's a hawk and cozies up to Wall Street, and I had to allow as how that was so. He said Dumbo was bull goose loony, and I couldn't agree more. But then I thought of that what's an Aleppo guy, and that green woman who has an angry fanatic look in her eyes, and then Ralph himself, who when asked a simple question, are the big girl and Dumbo equally bad, squirmed around like a worm on a hook even though he isn't actually running for anything, and it occurred to me, that three parties are probably not enough, seems like we need to have maybe six before we can find one to nominate somebody we like.
Even though the Cubs were playing a desperate game only two from being eliminated and goat's breath was swirling around them like a west coast hurricane, I watched last night's debate.
More of the same. The big girl smirking, Dumbo scowling like a bull with a couple of those lances stuck into his ornery hide. There have been a few things from Wikileaks that Dumbo might have used, but he just wandered randomly from topic to topic. He has no attention span. Right at the end he was asked if he lost would he accept the results and he said maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't, which is kind of like saying that he doesn't accept the peaceful exchange of power, which is one of the things we Americans brag about at the end of every election.
A big deal was made of that in the spin room. And I suppose it is a big deal, but really, what is Dumbo going to do? Lead a pack of his crackpots to the White House and break all the nice crockery? A lot has been made, especially by those of my ilk, of comparisons between Dumbo and Hitler's rise to power. But there is nothing like the brownshirts among Dumbo backers. I think they'll just fade away like, I dunno, cubism.
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
Smitty the Cook
Now there was somebody that you could make a movie about. When I first got to Berlin, there were lots of guys who had re-enlisted to fill their own vacancies and planned to spend their whole 20 year army careers right there. We called all the career guys "lifers", but we also called the permanent Berlin guys "brown baggers". That's because most of them were either married to or shacking up with local girls, lived off post, and carried their stuff back and forth in brown leather bags that were kind of a cross between a briefcase and a suitcase, just like the German civilians. The rest of us all had gym bags, which we called "AWOL bags", that we used for short overnight visits, but carrying a brown "brotchen" bag was the mark of a true Berliner.
As the Vietnam War was ramping up, a new rule was passed that a guy could only spend a maximum of six years in Berlin, and then, if he re-enlisted, he would be sent someplace else. Some of the brown baggers took their wives with them to their next duty station, and some of them didn't re-enlist when their hitch was up, planning to stay in Berlin for the rest of their lives. I don't know how that worked out for most of them, the only one I ran into later was Smitty the Cook.
Smitty had been in Berlin for a long time. I don't think he was married, but his position as our company's head cook opened up a number of business opportunities of which he took full advantage. It probably started out with the C-ration cigarettes. None of the guys liked them, said they "tasted like shit", and they could buy good cigarettes at the PX, so nobody complained that the cigarettes that were supposed to be included in every C-ration meal, were never there. I wasn't a smoker yet, but it was common knowledge that the German cigarettes, which were quite expensive, tasted even worse than our C-ration cigarettes, and there was a significant black market demand for any kind American cigarettes. Being a savvy businessman, Smitty reinvested his cigarette profits into other less-than-legal enterprises, and, by the time I knew him, he was notorious for being the one guy in Berlin who could get you anything you wanted.....for a price.
When Smitty's enlistment was up, everybody said that it was hard to imagine a Berlin without him, and we didn't have to for long. A couple months later, Smitty showed up slinging hash at the EES snack bar. (EES stood for European Exchange System, which was kind of a concession deal where German owned companies could operate small businesses on U.S. military posts.) Smitty was unwilling to abandon his business interests in Berlin, but he needed some kind of legal job in order to get residency status as a civilian. Since Smitty knew, like everybody, it wasn't hard for him to land a job with the EES for which he was certainly overqualified. I don't know what became of Smitty after I left, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was still there, slinging hash by day and wheeling-dealing by night.
As the Vietnam War was ramping up, a new rule was passed that a guy could only spend a maximum of six years in Berlin, and then, if he re-enlisted, he would be sent someplace else. Some of the brown baggers took their wives with them to their next duty station, and some of them didn't re-enlist when their hitch was up, planning to stay in Berlin for the rest of their lives. I don't know how that worked out for most of them, the only one I ran into later was Smitty the Cook.
Smitty had been in Berlin for a long time. I don't think he was married, but his position as our company's head cook opened up a number of business opportunities of which he took full advantage. It probably started out with the C-ration cigarettes. None of the guys liked them, said they "tasted like shit", and they could buy good cigarettes at the PX, so nobody complained that the cigarettes that were supposed to be included in every C-ration meal, were never there. I wasn't a smoker yet, but it was common knowledge that the German cigarettes, which were quite expensive, tasted even worse than our C-ration cigarettes, and there was a significant black market demand for any kind American cigarettes. Being a savvy businessman, Smitty reinvested his cigarette profits into other less-than-legal enterprises, and, by the time I knew him, he was notorious for being the one guy in Berlin who could get you anything you wanted.....for a price.
When Smitty's enlistment was up, everybody said that it was hard to imagine a Berlin without him, and we didn't have to for long. A couple months later, Smitty showed up slinging hash at the EES snack bar. (EES stood for European Exchange System, which was kind of a concession deal where German owned companies could operate small businesses on U.S. military posts.) Smitty was unwilling to abandon his business interests in Berlin, but he needed some kind of legal job in order to get residency status as a civilian. Since Smitty knew, like everybody, it wasn't hard for him to land a job with the EES for which he was certainly overqualified. I don't know what became of Smitty after I left, but I wouldn't be surprised if he was still there, slinging hash by day and wheeling-dealing by night.
But not sushi
Good pizza in Cold War Berlin, huh? I shouldn't be surprised since the Italians and Germans were pretty tight a few decades previously. But pouring olive oil on a pizza is new to me and sounds hardcore. I've read that drizzling a little oil on a frozen pizza can be an improvement, but needing a pitcher sounds excessive. Could have been a good cure for constipation, though.
That reminds me of one of my own eating experiences while overseas. The first time in my life that I ate tacos was on Okinawa. Quite a few military personnel, having married local gals, retired and stayed on The Rock and opened eateries. Soul food, Italian, Mexican, you name it, all catering to the tastes of the boys far from home. Some of them opened nightclubs or bars; one guy I knew had a concert/dance place called the "Fillmore East," complete with light shows. Good times.
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Uncle Ken is correct in the use of biker term dressers (or full-dressers), but that's a little out of date. The current term is touring bike, as opposed to sport bike, cruiser, street bike, dirt bike, blah, blah, blah. You don't see cafe racers much anymore; I liked those. The simplest, unadorned bike is referred to as naked.
And now I have to rethink my assessment of Inside Llewyn Davis; Uncle Ken keeps bringing up points which I shouldn't ignore. Damn, I hate when that happens.
That reminds me of one of my own eating experiences while overseas. The first time in my life that I ate tacos was on Okinawa. Quite a few military personnel, having married local gals, retired and stayed on The Rock and opened eateries. Soul food, Italian, Mexican, you name it, all catering to the tastes of the boys far from home. Some of them opened nightclubs or bars; one guy I knew had a concert/dance place called the "Fillmore East," complete with light shows. Good times.
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Uncle Ken is correct in the use of biker term dressers (or full-dressers), but that's a little out of date. The current term is touring bike, as opposed to sport bike, cruiser, street bike, dirt bike, blah, blah, blah. You don't see cafe racers much anymore; I liked those. The simplest, unadorned bike is referred to as naked.
And now I have to rethink my assessment of Inside Llewyn Davis; Uncle Ken keeps bringing up points which I shouldn't ignore. Damn, I hate when that happens.
down with the establishment
I wouldn't think Llewellyn was about folk music. I hate those movies that are marketed to be about something, like say the Berlin wall and all they are really about is a guy and a dame and the hero punching out the bad guy in the old abandoned warehouse down the street from the wall. I think Llewellyn fits the mode of a lot of the Coen brothers' movies, the central character who sort of believes in something, and assume others do too, but then he gets beaten up by the world which is full of people who don't necessarily believe that way at all. It seems like the Coens could make a pretty good movie about the Infamous Sawyer School Blue Jeans Incident.
I saw Bob Dylan in Hyde Park shortly after the Infamous Newport Incident. I was only vaguely aware of the controversy, There had also been a controversy over his latest album, Bringing it all Back Home, the purists didn't like the cover which had Bob in a suit in some fancy room with some fancy dame and it didn't seem fitting for the voice of the downtrodden masses. Anyway there was some muttering but nothing much broke out when the electric instruments broke out. I recall that Bob did some of his songs with his back to the audience and we all thought that was so cool,
See because he was turning his back on the establishment, not us who Bob knew were cool enough to know that he wasn't giving us his backside, it was only symbolic, and certainly aimed beyond us at the establishment. See.
I hated the word establishment back when I hated the establishment, It was so uncool. It was the word they were always putting in our mouths when they had hippie characters on tv or in movies. "Down with the Establishment," their protest signs said. And of course hippies always had protest signs, and fringe and headbands.
I also hated fringe and headbands and bell bottoms and all those hippie accoutrements. There was something just so phony about those kinds of hippies, you know they were the sort who saw those hippie characters on tv or in the movies, and thought oh cool, I want to be like them,
They were dressers. I think that's the term bikers used for the those bikes that has all like the saddlebags and probably fringe also.
I saw Bob Dylan in Hyde Park shortly after the Infamous Newport Incident. I was only vaguely aware of the controversy, There had also been a controversy over his latest album, Bringing it all Back Home, the purists didn't like the cover which had Bob in a suit in some fancy room with some fancy dame and it didn't seem fitting for the voice of the downtrodden masses. Anyway there was some muttering but nothing much broke out when the electric instruments broke out. I recall that Bob did some of his songs with his back to the audience and we all thought that was so cool,
See because he was turning his back on the establishment, not us who Bob knew were cool enough to know that he wasn't giving us his backside, it was only symbolic, and certainly aimed beyond us at the establishment. See.
I hated the word establishment back when I hated the establishment, It was so uncool. It was the word they were always putting in our mouths when they had hippie characters on tv or in movies. "Down with the Establishment," their protest signs said. And of course hippies always had protest signs, and fringe and headbands.
I also hated fringe and headbands and bell bottoms and all those hippie accoutrements. There was something just so phony about those kinds of hippies, you know they were the sort who saw those hippie characters on tv or in the movies, and thought oh cool, I want to be like them,
They were dressers. I think that's the term bikers used for the those bikes that has all like the saddlebags and probably fringe also.
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
Trucking Through Berlin
We certainly had our share of uncouth louts in our outfit, and dressing them up in nice suits didn't seem to make them any couther. They generally hung out on the Hauptstrasse, where there was a string of bars that catered to that sort of clientele. For the rest of us, there was the Kurfurstendam, which we abbreviated as the Kudam. The Kudam was in the British Sector, but there was nothing particularly British about it. It was a cosmopolitan kind of neighborhood where all the tourists went, and all the GIs who wanted to avoid the uncouth louts on the Hauptstrasse.
Berlin was divided into four sectors after the war for administrative purposes. American, British, French, and Russian soldiers were each stationed in their own sector, but there were no travel restrictions between the sectors until the Berlin Wall went up and the Russian Sector was sealed off from the others. Before that, I think it was in 1948, the Russians tried to isolate the whole city of Berlin, which was totally surrounded by East Germany. The good guys responded by instituting the Berlin Air Lift which, for a time, supplied the whole city completely by air. They couldn't have kept that up forever, they just did it to prove a point. The Russians seem to have gotten the point because they relented and henceforth allowed the city to be supplied by rail and road. Check points were established at border crossings, and loads were frequently inspected, but they almost always let them go through. I think that West Berlin civilians were allowed to go into East Germany, but East Germans and East Berliners were not allowed into West Berlin. Military convoys made regular border crossings both ways. Sometimes they were delayed on one pretext or another, but they always got through eventually.
There was no Italian Sector, but there must have been an Italian neighborhood because we stumbled into this pizza joint once where nobody was speaking English or German. As luck would have it, one of our group spoke a little Italian, so we had him order us some pizza. The only furniture in the place were these high round tables, just big enough for a pizza, where the customers stood around and ate. I saw some customers carrying pitchers to their tables, which I assumed to be full of beer. When I asked for one, the guy behind the counter said, "You wanna the extra grease?" Assuming that he didn't understand me, I asked Jimmy, our Italian speaking friend, to come over and translate. Come to find out, those pitchers were filled with olive oil, not beer. These guys were actually pouring the olive oil on their pizzas, to the point that it ran off the tables and onto the floor, which explains why the whole place had kind of a glossy sheen to it. Jimmy recommended that we not do likewise, and we didn't. The pizza was really good as it was, and we didn't see how drenching it in olive oil could possibly make it better.
I don't remember seeing any of the movies, and I am only vaguely familiar with most of the singers that you guys have been discussing. I guess I just ain't got no culture.
Berlin was divided into four sectors after the war for administrative purposes. American, British, French, and Russian soldiers were each stationed in their own sector, but there were no travel restrictions between the sectors until the Berlin Wall went up and the Russian Sector was sealed off from the others. Before that, I think it was in 1948, the Russians tried to isolate the whole city of Berlin, which was totally surrounded by East Germany. The good guys responded by instituting the Berlin Air Lift which, for a time, supplied the whole city completely by air. They couldn't have kept that up forever, they just did it to prove a point. The Russians seem to have gotten the point because they relented and henceforth allowed the city to be supplied by rail and road. Check points were established at border crossings, and loads were frequently inspected, but they almost always let them go through. I think that West Berlin civilians were allowed to go into East Germany, but East Germans and East Berliners were not allowed into West Berlin. Military convoys made regular border crossings both ways. Sometimes they were delayed on one pretext or another, but they always got through eventually.
There was no Italian Sector, but there must have been an Italian neighborhood because we stumbled into this pizza joint once where nobody was speaking English or German. As luck would have it, one of our group spoke a little Italian, so we had him order us some pizza. The only furniture in the place were these high round tables, just big enough for a pizza, where the customers stood around and ate. I saw some customers carrying pitchers to their tables, which I assumed to be full of beer. When I asked for one, the guy behind the counter said, "You wanna the extra grease?" Assuming that he didn't understand me, I asked Jimmy, our Italian speaking friend, to come over and translate. Come to find out, those pitchers were filled with olive oil, not beer. These guys were actually pouring the olive oil on their pizzas, to the point that it ran off the tables and onto the floor, which explains why the whole place had kind of a glossy sheen to it. Jimmy recommended that we not do likewise, and we didn't. The pizza was really good as it was, and we didn't see how drenching it in olive oil could possibly make it better.
I don't remember seeing any of the movies, and I am only vaguely familiar with most of the singers that you guys have been discussing. I guess I just ain't got no culture.
This side up
The "suit & tie" requirement for off duty personnel seemed a bit harsh to me, but then I put it in the context of the Cold War. It makes sense from a PR perspective to portray a positive image of clean-cut Americans, lest they be perceived as uncouth louts.
How were the logistics in the American Sector of Berlin handled? Was everything brought in by air? I can't imagine supply convoys, loaded with goodies for the PX, cruising along the autobahn in East Germany.
And were the other sectors freely accessible? Could you go to the British Sector for a little taste of fine English cuisine? Movies have often depicted occupied Berlin as gray and dreary; I'm sure it couldn't always have been like that. I'm thinking particularly of Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961), with Jimmy Cagney.
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Speaking of movies, I don't see how describing a movie as uneven puts it into a dustbin, and the statement about the uniform was a separate thought having nothing to do with it being uneven. I should have used a period and not the word and. Grammar be hard.
But really funny, really good are not words I would use, but that's just a matter of opinion. For a folk music related movie A Mighty Wind was better and funnier, and that's another opinion. I'll withhold further comment until Mr. Beagles weighs in with his assessment.
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Just listened to a live version of Dave Van Ronk's rendition of Both Sides, Now (from Joni Mitchell's Clouds album). And versions by Neil Diamond, Natalie Cole, Willie Nelson, Susan Boyle, The Brother Four, Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, Leonard Nimoy, Dion DiMucci...jeez, I'm getting tired of that song; never got to Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Claudine Longet, or the Osmond Brothers. And there were many more versions, some by singers I've never heard of.
I saw Joni Mitchell in a small club in D.C. (1968), and I still prefer the way Judy Collins sang the song.
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Finally some good news regarding atmospheric carbon dioxide...some really clever university folk have created a catalyst that converts CO2 (dissolved in water) to ethanol, with an efficiency of 65%. No home should be without this.
How were the logistics in the American Sector of Berlin handled? Was everything brought in by air? I can't imagine supply convoys, loaded with goodies for the PX, cruising along the autobahn in East Germany.
And were the other sectors freely accessible? Could you go to the British Sector for a little taste of fine English cuisine? Movies have often depicted occupied Berlin as gray and dreary; I'm sure it couldn't always have been like that. I'm thinking particularly of Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961), with Jimmy Cagney.
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Speaking of movies, I don't see how describing a movie as uneven puts it into a dustbin, and the statement about the uniform was a separate thought having nothing to do with it being uneven. I should have used a period and not the word and. Grammar be hard.
But really funny, really good are not words I would use, but that's just a matter of opinion. For a folk music related movie A Mighty Wind was better and funnier, and that's another opinion. I'll withhold further comment until Mr. Beagles weighs in with his assessment.
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Just listened to a live version of Dave Van Ronk's rendition of Both Sides, Now (from Joni Mitchell's Clouds album). And versions by Neil Diamond, Natalie Cole, Willie Nelson, Susan Boyle, The Brother Four, Glen Campbell, Dolly Parton, Leonard Nimoy, Dion DiMucci...jeez, I'm getting tired of that song; never got to Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Claudine Longet, or the Osmond Brothers. And there were many more versions, some by singers I've never heard of.
I saw Joni Mitchell in a small club in D.C. (1968), and I still prefer the way Judy Collins sang the song.
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Finally some good news regarding atmospheric carbon dioxide...some really clever university folk have created a catalyst that converts CO2 (dissolved in water) to ethanol, with an efficiency of 65%. No home should be without this.
men in uniform
Since when my friends and neighbors greeted me and offered me the opportunity to serve I declined it, I don't have any war stories like my fellow correspondents, I did have a year of ROTC in college however and once a week I had to go to drill and that meant if you had a class just before it or just after it and couldn't get back to the dorm inbetween, you had to wear that Goddamn uniform walking around and in class, and if you passed any officer you had to salute them, War was hell.
The character in Llewellyn was very loosely based on Dave Van Rock, in the sense that it didn't have much to do with him., Dave actually had something of a career, I'm sure he had a few LPs. The summer after the summer of love there was a controversy raging in the bay area over the cool new medium of FM radio and whether he or Joni Mitchell sang Clouds better. I liked his version better, he had one of those gravelly voices.
In the movie, right at the end Llewellyn, trying to be a true blue folksinger and failing at every turn walks off the stage just as some Dylanesque singer takes to it and begins singing in that scratchy manner.
There was a connection between Bob and Dave. It was Dave who gave The House of the Rising Sun the treatment that Dylan stole to make a hit of it. Dave was a little pissed, but what could he do? Later when the Animals stole the version that Bob stole from Dave, Bob was a little pissed.
I can't believe that Old Dog would toss this really funny, really good, movie into the dustbin of uneven because in one scene a guy is wearing the wrong army uniform. For Chrissake. I'm a sucker for even not very good movies set in Chicago and they are always getting the streets wrong, and I don't care, and you know what, the movie guys know they are getting it wrong, but it's something they do because it helps the story, because they are telling a story, not giving a history lesson, If when I am painting corn I make a cob too uneven or too even just so that it looks better to me, I apologize to nobody.
I left Bob after Nashville Skyline, picked him up again after those late 90s cds and now I am filling in inbetween
The character in Llewellyn was very loosely based on Dave Van Rock, in the sense that it didn't have much to do with him., Dave actually had something of a career, I'm sure he had a few LPs. The summer after the summer of love there was a controversy raging in the bay area over the cool new medium of FM radio and whether he or Joni Mitchell sang Clouds better. I liked his version better, he had one of those gravelly voices.
In the movie, right at the end Llewellyn, trying to be a true blue folksinger and failing at every turn walks off the stage just as some Dylanesque singer takes to it and begins singing in that scratchy manner.
There was a connection between Bob and Dave. It was Dave who gave The House of the Rising Sun the treatment that Dylan stole to make a hit of it. Dave was a little pissed, but what could he do? Later when the Animals stole the version that Bob stole from Dave, Bob was a little pissed.
I can't believe that Old Dog would toss this really funny, really good, movie into the dustbin of uneven because in one scene a guy is wearing the wrong army uniform. For Chrissake. I'm a sucker for even not very good movies set in Chicago and they are always getting the streets wrong, and I don't care, and you know what, the movie guys know they are getting it wrong, but it's something they do because it helps the story, because they are telling a story, not giving a history lesson, If when I am painting corn I make a cob too uneven or too even just so that it looks better to me, I apologize to nobody.
I left Bob after Nashville Skyline, picked him up again after those late 90s cds and now I am filling in inbetween
Monday, October 17, 2016
Hong Kong Charlie
In Berlin we could go in and out the gate dressed in fatigues during the daytime, but at night we had to be either in class A uniform or civilian clothes. Not just any civilian clothes either, we had to wear a suit and tie. At some point they modified the rules so that you could take your tie and jacket off if you were at an event where the local Germans weren't wearing ties and jackets. The only time I remember seeing Germans downtown without their ties and jackets was at a Halloween party. My friends and I hadn't set out to go to that particular party, we just kind of stumbled into it.
Another time I got to dress informally was when a few of us went skiing. Most of Berlin was flat as a pancake, but they had a few hills that had been constructed out of the ruble of World War II, and one of them featured a small ski run. My friends talked me into it, even though I told them I had never been skiing in my life. They said they would teach me but, when we got there, we found there as no place to practice, there was just the one straight run, which had a lodge type building right at the bottom of it. My friends said that I shouldn't have any trouble because it was an easy run, but I was worried about crashing through the plate glass window at the bottom of the run. They showed me how to "snowplow", which was supposed to be a way to stop myself, but I never did get the hang of it. They also told me that, if I was ever out of control, I should lay down on my side, and that would stop me for sure. I did get the hang of that. I would snowplow all the way down, and then lay down on my side right at the end. I don't know how many times I did that, but I was soaking wet by the time we left. None of us had any proper ski clothes, and I was wearing a bulky knit wool sweater, which my friends told me later was a mistake. I asked them why they hadn't told me that before we went, and they said they had figured that I knew what I was doing, in spite of the fact that I had told them in the beginning that I did not.
The first time I went downtown in Berlin I wore my class As because I didn't have a civilian suit to wear. Nobody in our outfit ever wore class As downtown, and they all told me to get a proper suit from Hong Kong Charlie, who visited our barracks about once a month. Charlie sold really nice quality suits for a really cheap price. He would wheel several clothes racks right into the barracks and set up shop in the hallway by the orderly room, which is what we called our company office. We didn't buy our suits off the rack, those suits were just samples for us to look at. After we picked out the suit we wanted, Charlie would measure us all over, order one like it custom made for us, and bring it with him the next time he came around. I think the suits were actually made in Hong Kong, which is why we called the dealer "Hong Kong Charlie". Some guys bought several suits and sent them home to wear after their discharge because the prices were so cheap. I just bought the one, and it served me well for two and a half years. I don't remember what happened to it after I got out, but I probably outgrew it before it wore out.
Another time I got to dress informally was when a few of us went skiing. Most of Berlin was flat as a pancake, but they had a few hills that had been constructed out of the ruble of World War II, and one of them featured a small ski run. My friends talked me into it, even though I told them I had never been skiing in my life. They said they would teach me but, when we got there, we found there as no place to practice, there was just the one straight run, which had a lodge type building right at the bottom of it. My friends said that I shouldn't have any trouble because it was an easy run, but I was worried about crashing through the plate glass window at the bottom of the run. They showed me how to "snowplow", which was supposed to be a way to stop myself, but I never did get the hang of it. They also told me that, if I was ever out of control, I should lay down on my side, and that would stop me for sure. I did get the hang of that. I would snowplow all the way down, and then lay down on my side right at the end. I don't know how many times I did that, but I was soaking wet by the time we left. None of us had any proper ski clothes, and I was wearing a bulky knit wool sweater, which my friends told me later was a mistake. I asked them why they hadn't told me that before we went, and they said they had figured that I knew what I was doing, in spite of the fact that I had told them in the beginning that I did not.
The first time I went downtown in Berlin I wore my class As because I didn't have a civilian suit to wear. Nobody in our outfit ever wore class As downtown, and they all told me to get a proper suit from Hong Kong Charlie, who visited our barracks about once a month. Charlie sold really nice quality suits for a really cheap price. He would wheel several clothes racks right into the barracks and set up shop in the hallway by the orderly room, which is what we called our company office. We didn't buy our suits off the rack, those suits were just samples for us to look at. After we picked out the suit we wanted, Charlie would measure us all over, order one like it custom made for us, and bring it with him the next time he came around. I think the suits were actually made in Hong Kong, which is why we called the dealer "Hong Kong Charlie". Some guys bought several suits and sent them home to wear after their discharge because the prices were so cheap. I just bought the one, and it served me well for two and a half years. I don't remember what happened to it after I got out, but I probably outgrew it before it wore out.
Everyone's a critic
Bobby Vee! That was exactly who I was thinking of when I commented on the bard's vocal ability. There were an awful lot of Bobbys singing at that time besides Mr. Vee; you had Bobby Vinton, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Darin, Bobby Freeman, and a few others. But Dylan didn't jump on the Bobby bandwagon; he was simply Bob, a slightly more serious name.
I'll trust Uncle Ken's judgement on his musical ability, as my archive of Dylan recordings ends with Blonde on Blonde. Nothing after that really caught my interest to the extent that I would go out and buy it. I don't reject the later works; I just prefer the earlier stuff.
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Following Uncle Ken's plug, I watched Inside Llewyn Davis this afternoon. Another quirky Coen brothers movie, apparently patterned after the career of a singer with whom I am unfamiliar: Dave Van Ronk. The movie was a little too uneven for me, and they made a big error (to me) when they had the guy from Ft. Dix in his fatigues. That did not happen in those days; when you left base you were in civilian clothes or Class A uniform. Never fatigues; the MPs would snatch you up. I seem to recall a dress code for civilian clothes, too. No T-shirts (unless they had a pocket), no sandals without socks, and shirts had to have a collar. I forgot if there was a blue jean policy. It was goofy, but the rules probably varied from base to base. I've seen guys turned back at the front gate because they were improperly attired or needed a haircut. No overnight pass for you! Perhaps Mr. Beagles has some insights on how things were done in Germany.
Little things like that uniform faux pas can ruin a movie for me because then I start keeping an eye out for what else may be wrong and thus lose the continuity and flow. It's like seeing an extra in Braveheart wearing a wristwatch. Damn distracting and I should be more charitable to the filmmakers, but such is the curse of keen eyed observation.
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An odd final note on the Coen brothers' movie is that two of the actors later appeared in the most recent Star Wars movie. They must have thought that a strange coincidence when they met again on the set.
I'll trust Uncle Ken's judgement on his musical ability, as my archive of Dylan recordings ends with Blonde on Blonde. Nothing after that really caught my interest to the extent that I would go out and buy it. I don't reject the later works; I just prefer the earlier stuff.
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Following Uncle Ken's plug, I watched Inside Llewyn Davis this afternoon. Another quirky Coen brothers movie, apparently patterned after the career of a singer with whom I am unfamiliar: Dave Van Ronk. The movie was a little too uneven for me, and they made a big error (to me) when they had the guy from Ft. Dix in his fatigues. That did not happen in those days; when you left base you were in civilian clothes or Class A uniform. Never fatigues; the MPs would snatch you up. I seem to recall a dress code for civilian clothes, too. No T-shirts (unless they had a pocket), no sandals without socks, and shirts had to have a collar. I forgot if there was a blue jean policy. It was goofy, but the rules probably varied from base to base. I've seen guys turned back at the front gate because they were improperly attired or needed a haircut. No overnight pass for you! Perhaps Mr. Beagles has some insights on how things were done in Germany.
Little things like that uniform faux pas can ruin a movie for me because then I start keeping an eye out for what else may be wrong and thus lose the continuity and flow. It's like seeing an extra in Braveheart wearing a wristwatch. Damn distracting and I should be more charitable to the filmmakers, but such is the curse of keen eyed observation.
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An odd final note on the Coen brothers' movie is that two of the actors later appeared in the most recent Star Wars movie. They must have thought that a strange coincidence when they met again on the set.
blowin in the wind
I'm a bit of a student of Bob Dylan myself, meaning I have read a few books. Books, ahem, not videios, just kidding. When he was in high school he had his own little rock and roll band, His favorite musician was Bobby Vee. He went to the University of Minnesota he wasn't interested in very much, kind of drifted, he was a dropout. Remember college dropouts kind of romantic figures of the sixties?
One time he was left alone in a house full of folk music records. It was one of those moments when you kind of stumble on something, and it's like holy shit was is this stuff?
Or so he says, this is taken from his book Chronicles. To me there has always been a bit of a flim flam man in Bob, a guy who will never give you a straight answer if he can think of a crooked one. This may sound like a criticism, but I rather like that about the guy, the flim flam thing.
And there was certainly a bit of a flim flam when Bob hit the New York folksinging scene. Very good movie about that time, Finding Llewellyn Davis, just giving it a plug. He told a whole passel of lies at the time including his name and his background and he threw in all these hobo references because hobos were kind of revered in folk music at the time.
He hit it big ladies and germs, was at the top of his genre, was seen by many as the spokesman of his generation. But according to him, it made him a little uneasy, you gotta be kind of careful what you say when you are the spokesmen of your generation,
And Bobby wanted to be free, and maybe the world of folk music was too small for him, and maybe he still had that hoodlum Debil's music, rock and roll in his veins because then he hauled out the electrical equipment at that music festival.
Dylan did write some poetry, some of it was on his record albums. How sad that we no longer have liner notes. And there was a book, Tarantula that never got read much. Probably the music that most impressed the Noblists was his early folksongs, When he went electric he began getting into surrealism, pretty words, nice phrases, but when you put it all together, what the hell is he talking about?
I think Old Dog is shorting Bob on his music. I was recently listening to Blood on the Tracks and Tangled up in Blue and Simple Twist of Fate are still rolling through my mind. Another thing I read about in those books is he is not interested in playing a song the same way twice. When he records an album he gathers together a bunch of musicians, who sit around waiting for the plans and the Bob just bursts into song and they have to scramble to catch up, so there is an air of spontaneity to the whole thing.
One time he was left alone in a house full of folk music records. It was one of those moments when you kind of stumble on something, and it's like holy shit was is this stuff?
Or so he says, this is taken from his book Chronicles. To me there has always been a bit of a flim flam man in Bob, a guy who will never give you a straight answer if he can think of a crooked one. This may sound like a criticism, but I rather like that about the guy, the flim flam thing.
And there was certainly a bit of a flim flam when Bob hit the New York folksinging scene. Very good movie about that time, Finding Llewellyn Davis, just giving it a plug. He told a whole passel of lies at the time including his name and his background and he threw in all these hobo references because hobos were kind of revered in folk music at the time.
He hit it big ladies and germs, was at the top of his genre, was seen by many as the spokesman of his generation. But according to him, it made him a little uneasy, you gotta be kind of careful what you say when you are the spokesmen of your generation,
And Bobby wanted to be free, and maybe the world of folk music was too small for him, and maybe he still had that hoodlum Debil's music, rock and roll in his veins because then he hauled out the electrical equipment at that music festival.
Dylan did write some poetry, some of it was on his record albums. How sad that we no longer have liner notes. And there was a book, Tarantula that never got read much. Probably the music that most impressed the Noblists was his early folksongs, When he went electric he began getting into surrealism, pretty words, nice phrases, but when you put it all together, what the hell is he talking about?
I think Old Dog is shorting Bob on his music. I was recently listening to Blood on the Tracks and Tangled up in Blue and Simple Twist of Fate are still rolling through my mind. Another thing I read about in those books is he is not interested in playing a song the same way twice. When he records an album he gathers together a bunch of musicians, who sit around waiting for the plans and the Bob just bursts into song and they have to scramble to catch up, so there is an air of spontaneity to the whole thing.
Saturday, October 15, 2016
I'd yammer in the evening
"As soon as you find yourself with different people, you will quickly revert to their way of speaking."
So true. After every summer vacation up in the north country of Wisconsin I talked funny for a week or so. The rich rural accent was easily absorbed by this impressionable youth, but it wasn't something I was trying to do; it came naturally. Kids quickly pick up on these things, don'cha know. It takes longer with adults but, sooner or later, our ears get in tune with the speech and verbiage of our peers.
I read somewhere, quite a while ago, the reason airline pilots have a sort of West Virginia drawl is because of Chuck Yeager, who inspired many a young pilot. Another unverifiable bit I read is that all TV news folk sound like they're from the midwest, possibly from the role of Chicago in early television broadcasting. Wasn't Dave Garroway based at NBC in the Merchndise Mart? But now everyone sounds like everyone else, and the little pockets of regional accents are getting smaller. I'd like it more if a reporter from New York spoke in a thick Brooklyn accent, or a guy from Boston talked like a real Southie, and a guy from Atlanta spoke in a languid southern drawl. We sound like we're from somewhere else.
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That Nobel Prize to Grizzly Zimmerman got me thinking about his folkie roots. I'd forgotten about what a big deal folk music was at the time; remember Hootenanny? Folk singers were everywhere, but I think a lot of them were posers, a bunch of college kids in matching sports coats. Just singing a folk song does not a folk singer make. Pete Seeger was the real thing but he could never get on TV until, I think, the Smothers Brothers brought him on their show in '68 or so.
A bit of criticism about the Nobel Prize has surfaced, with some claiming that a prize in literature should not go to a musician. Musician? I can't think of any Dylan tunes sticking in my head like an earworm; his music only served as a vehicle for the words, and the words were poetry. And a lot of modern poets agree with this (I read it on the Internet!).
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The great electric betrayal at Newport didn't bother me, mostly because I was only familiar with his work via cover versions by other performers. When I finally bought one of his albums I was disappointed in his vocal chops; the guy is not a crooner. But his stuff grew on me. How could it not? You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
So true. After every summer vacation up in the north country of Wisconsin I talked funny for a week or so. The rich rural accent was easily absorbed by this impressionable youth, but it wasn't something I was trying to do; it came naturally. Kids quickly pick up on these things, don'cha know. It takes longer with adults but, sooner or later, our ears get in tune with the speech and verbiage of our peers.
I read somewhere, quite a while ago, the reason airline pilots have a sort of West Virginia drawl is because of Chuck Yeager, who inspired many a young pilot. Another unverifiable bit I read is that all TV news folk sound like they're from the midwest, possibly from the role of Chicago in early television broadcasting. Wasn't Dave Garroway based at NBC in the Merchndise Mart? But now everyone sounds like everyone else, and the little pockets of regional accents are getting smaller. I'd like it more if a reporter from New York spoke in a thick Brooklyn accent, or a guy from Boston talked like a real Southie, and a guy from Atlanta spoke in a languid southern drawl. We sound like we're from somewhere else.
-----
That Nobel Prize to Grizzly Zimmerman got me thinking about his folkie roots. I'd forgotten about what a big deal folk music was at the time; remember Hootenanny? Folk singers were everywhere, but I think a lot of them were posers, a bunch of college kids in matching sports coats. Just singing a folk song does not a folk singer make. Pete Seeger was the real thing but he could never get on TV until, I think, the Smothers Brothers brought him on their show in '68 or so.
A bit of criticism about the Nobel Prize has surfaced, with some claiming that a prize in literature should not go to a musician. Musician? I can't think of any Dylan tunes sticking in my head like an earworm; his music only served as a vehicle for the words, and the words were poetry. And a lot of modern poets agree with this (I read it on the Internet!).
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The great electric betrayal at Newport didn't bother me, mostly because I was only familiar with his work via cover versions by other performers. When I finally bought one of his albums I was disappointed in his vocal chops; the guy is not a crooner. But his stuff grew on me. How could it not? You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows.
Friday, October 14, 2016
The Great Betrayal
That's what I called it when Bob Dylan went electric. What I learned from this was that it's not a good idea to get emotionally attached to celebrities because you never know when they're going to turn on you. I had embraced Dylan as the high priest of the neo folk movement of the 60s, which I considered to be an attractive alternative to the urban hoodlum rock culture. Don't feel bad if you don't understand that, most of the people to whom I have tried to explain it didn't understand it either, and some of them were professional musicians. As I have said before, I never claimed to be normal.
I remember that we were pretty profane when I was in the army. We used to worry about it in basic training, fearing that, when we went home on leave, we might casually say "pass the fucking salt" at the family dinner table. As it turned out, we needn't have worried. Mannerisms of speech like that are just a fucking habit that you pick up from the people around you. As soon as you find yourself with different people, you will quickly revert to their way of speaking. I think that's how languages evolve in the first place, you take a sub group and isolate them from the mainstream, and they quickly start to develop their own dialect. It must be human nature, some kind of social bonding thing. Sometimes a new person comes into the group and introduces a new turn of phrase that catches on and is assimilated into the local dialect. If it doesn't catch on, the new guy will likely drop it from his repertoire.
I seem to remember reading something when I was quite young which predicted that colonies on Mars would be established in my lifetime. I don't think it was science fiction, more like a feature article in a reputable newspaper. At that time, it was believed that there was liquid water on Mars, and that the Martian climate, while harsher than ours, was livable. I thought it would be neat to go there, not as an astronaut, but as a one way passenger who would remain and help establish a colony. Some time after I read that, the Martian canals evaporated, the climate deteriorated, and the air became too thin to breathe. Now, after all these years, I hear that some people are reviving the Martian dream. I understand that they already have a growing list of volunteers for the project, if it indeed ever comes to pass. Well I wouldn't go, even if I was young enough. If I wanted to live in an artificial habitat, I would have stayed in Chicago.
I remember that we were pretty profane when I was in the army. We used to worry about it in basic training, fearing that, when we went home on leave, we might casually say "pass the fucking salt" at the family dinner table. As it turned out, we needn't have worried. Mannerisms of speech like that are just a fucking habit that you pick up from the people around you. As soon as you find yourself with different people, you will quickly revert to their way of speaking. I think that's how languages evolve in the first place, you take a sub group and isolate them from the mainstream, and they quickly start to develop their own dialect. It must be human nature, some kind of social bonding thing. Sometimes a new person comes into the group and introduces a new turn of phrase that catches on and is assimilated into the local dialect. If it doesn't catch on, the new guy will likely drop it from his repertoire.
I seem to remember reading something when I was quite young which predicted that colonies on Mars would be established in my lifetime. I don't think it was science fiction, more like a feature article in a reputable newspaper. At that time, it was believed that there was liquid water on Mars, and that the Martian climate, while harsher than ours, was livable. I thought it would be neat to go there, not as an astronaut, but as a one way passenger who would remain and help establish a colony. Some time after I read that, the Martian canals evaporated, the climate deteriorated, and the air became too thin to breathe. Now, after all these years, I hear that some people are reviving the Martian dream. I understand that they already have a growing list of volunteers for the project, if it indeed ever comes to pass. Well I wouldn't go, even if I was young enough. If I wanted to live in an artificial habitat, I would have stayed in Chicago.
Gathering no moss
My recollections of barracks and locker room talk have become hazy after all these decades, but I remember it wasn't much about the subjects of conversation. The joyful use of epithets and cuss words was the big deal, as such conversation was otherwise frowned upon. Where else were you going to learn more swear words? Back then, swearing had an aura of "badness" and a well phrased oath enhanced whatever little status you may have had. It was our little secret, and we were easily amused.
But times and social mores have changed; vulgar language is much more commonly used, to it's great detriment. The words have lost their impact and shock value. You could judge the importance of something based on the amount of cursing it required to describe; a "big problem" might have some negative impact, but a "big fucking problem" was a real disaster.
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There was an old joke about the sun becoming a red giant in five billion years. Some guy hears that and is greatly distressed, until he hears the statement repeated. "Oh, I thought you said five million years."
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At this point, colonizing planets is a dumb idea. The physical challenges (and costs) are overwhelming. Unless we find some magic way to crawl out of our deep gravity well we're better off sending robots and probes. Floating colonies in orbit between earth and moon would be cool, though, if things get too crowded down here in the mud.
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Looking at Old Scratchy Bob's early album covers I was struck at how fresh and innocent he looked, and I suppose he was (as were we all). He's been at it for more than fifty years now, but time, taking it's toll, has not slowed him down much. He was recently in a geezer-era concert festival out west, with the likes of The Who and Rolling Stones. Speaking of fresh-faced kids, look at an early Stones album cover and marvel at the cute kids that were Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. They now look hideously transformed, but Charlie Watts just looks like an older version of his younger self. As they say, "It's not the years, it's the mileage."
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I wanted to avoid any election references today, but this item about Mr. Chump was too good to pass up:
In Australia, "...the upper chamber of the New South Wales Parliament, the Legislative Council, passed a motion proclaiming him a "revolting slug."
But times and social mores have changed; vulgar language is much more commonly used, to it's great detriment. The words have lost their impact and shock value. You could judge the importance of something based on the amount of cursing it required to describe; a "big problem" might have some negative impact, but a "big fucking problem" was a real disaster.
-----
There was an old joke about the sun becoming a red giant in five billion years. Some guy hears that and is greatly distressed, until he hears the statement repeated. "Oh, I thought you said five million years."
-----
At this point, colonizing planets is a dumb idea. The physical challenges (and costs) are overwhelming. Unless we find some magic way to crawl out of our deep gravity well we're better off sending robots and probes. Floating colonies in orbit between earth and moon would be cool, though, if things get too crowded down here in the mud.
-----
Looking at Old Scratchy Bob's early album covers I was struck at how fresh and innocent he looked, and I suppose he was (as were we all). He's been at it for more than fifty years now, but time, taking it's toll, has not slowed him down much. He was recently in a geezer-era concert festival out west, with the likes of The Who and Rolling Stones. Speaking of fresh-faced kids, look at an early Stones album cover and marvel at the cute kids that were Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. They now look hideously transformed, but Charlie Watts just looks like an older version of his younger self. As they say, "It's not the years, it's the mileage."
-----
I wanted to avoid any election references today, but this item about Mr. Chump was too good to pass up:
In Australia, "...the upper chamber of the New South Wales Parliament, the Legislative Council, passed a motion proclaiming him a "revolting slug."
Old Scratchy Bob
Five billion years from now the sun becomes a red giant, so if the world doesn't end by then, that should do it. There is some talk about us colonizing other planets before then so that the great human race does not end then. If we do that successfully we will have until the big rip which is tentatively estimated at 22 billion years. Myself I am not that big on us colonizing other planets, because what is so great about us? There are surely other intelligent beings like us out there and I reckon they can carry on with their version of western civ.
Nice little bit of fiction Old Dog. What the story lacks in in-depth characterization, it makes up for with its happy ending.
I feel a little unmanly talking about relationships. Not that it's unmanly to have a relationship, but talking about it feels unmanly. I guess it is when you are not going your own way, but you are altering your own way to accommodate the other person, what you give up in travelling your untrammeled path, is compensated by having some help with stuff by the other person, and you have to realize that the other person is not having their own untrammeled path anymore either because they are accommodating you. Or something like that. Put that in your Dear Abby pipe and smoke it.
You can move around in a video, but it's not as easy as your eye scanning across the page, and myself I have a tendency, especially under the influence of beer or wacky weed, to hit the wrong button and bam, I am back at selecting scenes, or worse yet, having to watch all those trailers again and that very obnoxious penalty for piracy screen.
Old Scratchy Bob. I remember hearing him the first time in some hippy dippy record store. I was a big fan of the Byrd's Mr Tambourine Man, so pretty, and then I heard Old Bob gnarling it out and I was all like what the fuck.
But I learned to like it, and I fell under his spell, it was so righteous and maybe we should all fight for what was right, and look cool doing it, and maybe get a little too, you know. And those cryptic interviews where he stuck it to the establishment, how cool. I remember seeing Don't Look Back about that time and I thought how cool. I saw it again maybe ten years ago and I thought what an asshole.
I loved the surreal imagery about the time of Blonde on Blonde, I tried to figure out what it all meant, but anymore I just see it as well, just music, which is fine. Anymore I like the later cds like Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft. I seem to detect a kind of tired cynicism which suits my current worldview.
Nice little bit of fiction Old Dog. What the story lacks in in-depth characterization, it makes up for with its happy ending.
I feel a little unmanly talking about relationships. Not that it's unmanly to have a relationship, but talking about it feels unmanly. I guess it is when you are not going your own way, but you are altering your own way to accommodate the other person, what you give up in travelling your untrammeled path, is compensated by having some help with stuff by the other person, and you have to realize that the other person is not having their own untrammeled path anymore either because they are accommodating you. Or something like that. Put that in your Dear Abby pipe and smoke it.
You can move around in a video, but it's not as easy as your eye scanning across the page, and myself I have a tendency, especially under the influence of beer or wacky weed, to hit the wrong button and bam, I am back at selecting scenes, or worse yet, having to watch all those trailers again and that very obnoxious penalty for piracy screen.
Old Scratchy Bob. I remember hearing him the first time in some hippy dippy record store. I was a big fan of the Byrd's Mr Tambourine Man, so pretty, and then I heard Old Bob gnarling it out and I was all like what the fuck.
But I learned to like it, and I fell under his spell, it was so righteous and maybe we should all fight for what was right, and look cool doing it, and maybe get a little too, you know. And those cryptic interviews where he stuck it to the establishment, how cool. I remember seeing Don't Look Back about that time and I thought how cool. I saw it again maybe ten years ago and I thought what an asshole.
I loved the surreal imagery about the time of Blonde on Blonde, I tried to figure out what it all meant, but anymore I just see it as well, just music, which is fine. Anymore I like the later cds like Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft. I seem to detect a kind of tired cynicism which suits my current worldview.
Thursday, October 13, 2016
It's Not the End of the World
I don't know what all the fuss is about, everybody knows that Hillary is going to win. Well, I suppose it's possible that Trump will win but, as a wise old philosopher once said, "All things are possible, but not all things are bloody likely." Even if Trump does win, it won't be the end of the world. People have been predicting the end of the world since the beginning of the world, and yet the world is still here. I suppose the world will end some day, everything does, but chances are that our world will come to an end before the whole world comes to an end. Let's face it boys, we don't have that much time left, and then it will be somebody else's problem.
I know that women hate that locker room talk, which is why guys don't talk that way in the presence of women. The more I think about it, all guys don't talk that way. I don't think that I did, at least not nearly as much as some other guys, but I never claimed to be normal.
I know that women hate that locker room talk, which is why guys don't talk that way in the presence of women. The more I think about it, all guys don't talk that way. I don't think that I did, at least not nearly as much as some other guys, but I never claimed to be normal.
A poor bit of fiction
There was once a young beauty who moved to the United States from a small eastern European country to pursue a career in modeling. She fell into bad company and became enthralled with a supposedly wealthy, and married, real estate developer. Romance, and a divorce, ensued after which they were happily married. The union produced a lovely child, and all was well.
But years later, the husband's behavior became erratic, with episodes of great delusion. As the delusions became more profound, the wife was slowly made aware of her husband's past which involved countless situations demonstrating predatory sexual behavior. Some of this behavior involved minor children but was publicly stated as a matter of pride by the husband.
This came as a complete shock to the wife and mother; she had no idea her husband had such a sordid history, behavior unheard of in the old country. When confronted directly he flew into a rage and struck her repeatedly, breaking her jaw and blackening one eye. The child, now a boy ten years of age, came to his mother's defense and he, too, was struck but knocked unconscious. The mother, still groggy from the previous blows and slightly weakened, flew into a fit of maternal rage and grabbed the first item at hand: a gilt model of one of the husband's most famous buildings and proceeded to strike him once, hitting him on the head. He died instantly.
The household staff came rushing in when they heard the obese body of the husband crashing to the floor and called the police, while the mother lay weeping next to her unconscious son. As the boy slowly revived, the mother cried out, "What have I done?"
After a short pause, the staff replied, "You've done good, Missus. You've done good."
But years later, the husband's behavior became erratic, with episodes of great delusion. As the delusions became more profound, the wife was slowly made aware of her husband's past which involved countless situations demonstrating predatory sexual behavior. Some of this behavior involved minor children but was publicly stated as a matter of pride by the husband.
This came as a complete shock to the wife and mother; she had no idea her husband had such a sordid history, behavior unheard of in the old country. When confronted directly he flew into a rage and struck her repeatedly, breaking her jaw and blackening one eye. The child, now a boy ten years of age, came to his mother's defense and he, too, was struck but knocked unconscious. The mother, still groggy from the previous blows and slightly weakened, flew into a fit of maternal rage and grabbed the first item at hand: a gilt model of one of the husband's most famous buildings and proceeded to strike him once, hitting him on the head. He died instantly.
The household staff came rushing in when they heard the obese body of the husband crashing to the floor and called the police, while the mother lay weeping next to her unconscious son. As the boy slowly revived, the mother cried out, "What have I done?"
After a short pause, the staff replied, "You've done good, Missus. You've done good."
If I had to yammer
Seldom does a word have only one definition in the dictionary, and relationship is one of those words. To some people, a relationship between men and women implies dating, friends with benefits, sport fucking and things of that nature, but I think those activities are the precursors to a relationship.
When you see a couple out shopping, and the guy is holding the purse (in good humor) you know that couple is in a relationship. Or, at the checkout line, when a single guy is buying a package of feminine hygiene products, you know for sure that he is in a relationship. That's my take on it, anyhow. A relationship requires trust and respect, not something easily achieved while simply "dating." I don't know what the kids these days use to describe casual encounters; is "hooking up" still a thing?
Another word with multiple meanings is video, a term Uncle Ken and I don't seem to agree with. To me, video is a technical term used to describe the transmission of moving pictures and sound, also used as a noun to describe the product of that process.
When Uncle Ken watches the political debates, he is watching a video. When he views his eagerly awaited movies from Netflix, he is watching something displayed on video. If, instead of stating that I watch videos on YouTube, I would say that I am watching online documentaries he may not bat an eye. And, much like reading, you can pause a video or go back a bit and reflect upon what you have seen. You are still in power.
Enough of these antics of semantics; I think we have enough of an understanding of what we're trying to talk about. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
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The time has passed for the GOP to do anything about invoking Rule 9, unless the candidate is "otherwise" indisposed. More info here: http://qz.com/804571/donald-trump-rnc-lawyers-are-looking-to-replace-the-republican-nominee/
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It's a little late in the game for me to consider those fancy soaps as a suitable gift, but it's a good tip. Flowers were always my go-to gift when I was desperate for something appropriate, but they make a lousy Christmas present. A small silk scarf works well and they can be pretty cheap, but then you have to go out shopping and make decisions about color and pattern. It can get complicated, but the ladies usually like those little items with which they can accessorize. But it's the thought that matters, right?
-----
If the lunatics start lobbing nukes, global warming will become a moot point. The subsequent nuclear winter will cool things down rather quickly, but I'm not suggesting that as a solution.
Pollution continues to be a problem, but at least there is an awareness of it and steps are being taken to stop it. Sadly, it may already be too late in many areas. Aren't the oceans already contaminated by pharmaceuticals that have been flushed down toilets? Also, I read that there are a lot of different hormones in some of our drinking water, and they cannot (yet) be removed.
-----
So, Bob Dylan is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Are we not living in an age of miracles?
When you see a couple out shopping, and the guy is holding the purse (in good humor) you know that couple is in a relationship. Or, at the checkout line, when a single guy is buying a package of feminine hygiene products, you know for sure that he is in a relationship. That's my take on it, anyhow. A relationship requires trust and respect, not something easily achieved while simply "dating." I don't know what the kids these days use to describe casual encounters; is "hooking up" still a thing?
Another word with multiple meanings is video, a term Uncle Ken and I don't seem to agree with. To me, video is a technical term used to describe the transmission of moving pictures and sound, also used as a noun to describe the product of that process.
When Uncle Ken watches the political debates, he is watching a video. When he views his eagerly awaited movies from Netflix, he is watching something displayed on video. If, instead of stating that I watch videos on YouTube, I would say that I am watching online documentaries he may not bat an eye. And, much like reading, you can pause a video or go back a bit and reflect upon what you have seen. You are still in power.
Enough of these antics of semantics; I think we have enough of an understanding of what we're trying to talk about. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.
-----
The time has passed for the GOP to do anything about invoking Rule 9, unless the candidate is "otherwise" indisposed. More info here: http://qz.com/804571/donald-trump-rnc-lawyers-are-looking-to-replace-the-republican-nominee/
-----
It's a little late in the game for me to consider those fancy soaps as a suitable gift, but it's a good tip. Flowers were always my go-to gift when I was desperate for something appropriate, but they make a lousy Christmas present. A small silk scarf works well and they can be pretty cheap, but then you have to go out shopping and make decisions about color and pattern. It can get complicated, but the ladies usually like those little items with which they can accessorize. But it's the thought that matters, right?
-----
If the lunatics start lobbing nukes, global warming will become a moot point. The subsequent nuclear winter will cool things down rather quickly, but I'm not suggesting that as a solution.
Pollution continues to be a problem, but at least there is an awareness of it and steps are being taken to stop it. Sadly, it may already be too late in many areas. Aren't the oceans already contaminated by pharmaceuticals that have been flushed down toilets? Also, I read that there are a lot of different hormones in some of our drinking water, and they cannot (yet) be removed.
-----
So, Bob Dylan is awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Are we not living in an age of miracles?
video shmideo
It appears then that it takes somebody, and in this case I don't believe there would be much problem in finding somebody, to declare Dumbo Whatever, The method by which the national convention would be reconvened is not spelled out, but I can't see it happening if the Whatever candidate and his followers are against it, No I expect it is all up to Pence and his artfully concealed dagger.
"Why Mike, is that a toga you are wearing? Whatever for?"
"Oh no reason Mr Trump, no reason."
Probably I should stop talking this way. You never know when the feds might be having a slow day and be cruising the internet for low hanging fruit.
It was probably in 1964 when the Chicoms got their atomic bomb, that I got to thinking well it is just a matter of time until everybody gets one. Fifty years later I think we are eight. Clearly the newest member, seven years now, is the riskiest, the rhetoric is scary enough, but to me more worrisome is those big hats, they are likely to poke each other in their eyes and bam, there goes the nuclear button. For all that I don't worry about it that much, global warming and general pollution seems like the bigger threat,
I think I have already related the story, but as Beagles says, that has never stopped me before. A few years back I had to get a Christmas gift for a sister-in-law who was diabetic so that ruled out candy, so what the hell could I get her? I asked my sister what could I get her, and my sister said, soap, all women, she added, like soap (and by this I don't mean a case of ivory, I mean those fancy dancy daintily wrapped things that they sell in those little shoppes where we men can feel our gonads shriveling the minute we step in. Well I said I have been wondering what women want my whole life and now that I am an old man I am first learning this? Wait a minute, aren't you afraid that I'll tell other men? My sister sighed, who would believe that you knew what women wanted.
I say this by way of explaining to Old Dog what crap women hate. It's talk like that Mr Trump talk, that's what women hate. Some men may go all aw pshaw about that kind of talk, just boys being boys, but women hate it. Over half the voters in the USA are women. There's my case.
I know YouTube has a lot of fans. Many people besides Old Dog think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and maybe it is, and I am happy for whatever makes them happy. But I don't care for it. I don't like video. When I go to my political sites and there is video of something I never watch it. If I have a text I am in power. If the writer goes on about something I already know or am not interested in I can skip to the next paragraph, if it's somebody flapping their jaws I have to wait them out. When I am reading something I can go at my own speed and I can even backtrack, but if I am watching I have to go at the talker's speed.
"Why Mike, is that a toga you are wearing? Whatever for?"
"Oh no reason Mr Trump, no reason."
Probably I should stop talking this way. You never know when the feds might be having a slow day and be cruising the internet for low hanging fruit.
It was probably in 1964 when the Chicoms got their atomic bomb, that I got to thinking well it is just a matter of time until everybody gets one. Fifty years later I think we are eight. Clearly the newest member, seven years now, is the riskiest, the rhetoric is scary enough, but to me more worrisome is those big hats, they are likely to poke each other in their eyes and bam, there goes the nuclear button. For all that I don't worry about it that much, global warming and general pollution seems like the bigger threat,
I think I have already related the story, but as Beagles says, that has never stopped me before. A few years back I had to get a Christmas gift for a sister-in-law who was diabetic so that ruled out candy, so what the hell could I get her? I asked my sister what could I get her, and my sister said, soap, all women, she added, like soap (and by this I don't mean a case of ivory, I mean those fancy dancy daintily wrapped things that they sell in those little shoppes where we men can feel our gonads shriveling the minute we step in. Well I said I have been wondering what women want my whole life and now that I am an old man I am first learning this? Wait a minute, aren't you afraid that I'll tell other men? My sister sighed, who would believe that you knew what women wanted.
I say this by way of explaining to Old Dog what crap women hate. It's talk like that Mr Trump talk, that's what women hate. Some men may go all aw pshaw about that kind of talk, just boys being boys, but women hate it. Over half the voters in the USA are women. There's my case.
I know YouTube has a lot of fans. Many people besides Old Dog think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and maybe it is, and I am happy for whatever makes them happy. But I don't care for it. I don't like video. When I go to my political sites and there is video of something I never watch it. If I have a text I am in power. If the writer goes on about something I already know or am not interested in I can skip to the next paragraph, if it's somebody flapping their jaws I have to wait them out. When I am reading something I can go at my own speed and I can even backtrack, but if I am watching I have to go at the talker's speed.
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Locker Room Talk
You don't have to be in a locker room to hear locker room talk. It's just a figure of speech that refers to the way guys talk about girls when there are no women or children within earshot. Maybe they don't do that anymore, you couldn't prove it by me, but I know some guys were talking like that at least until 1990 when the paper mill closed down. Actually, by the time the mill closed, there were women working in all the departments, so we were seldom in a situation where there were no women around but, when we were, guys still talked like that. I don't remember hearing a lot of that in the bus garage, but there were women there too, so we had to watch our mouths. Plus, we were accustomed to being around kids, and you really had to watch your mouth with them because they would gleefully repeat anything you said like that to their parents, and then you would be in big trouble........ or so I have been told.
I don't remember hearing a woman use the word "relationship" to refer to what goes on between men and women until after the mill closed, and I don't believe I've ever heard a guy use that term except on television. We used to say that we were "going" or "going out" with somebody in polite company, or that we were "fucking, hammering, or nailing" her in impolite company. I don't know how the young people talk about each other today, but I suspect they talk differently amongst themselves than they do when adults are around. I don't remember ever hearing anything exactly like the Trump quote that Ken cited, but that's probably because I don't know any stars. For all I know, stars might be able to get away with kissing strange women and grabbing them by the pussy, but if anybody I knew tried something like that, I'm pretty sure there would be unpleasant consequences.
It seems that Rule 9 pretty well covers what happens when a presidential candidate is eliminated from the race, but I didn't see anything there that says he can be arbitrarily removed at the will of the committee. Maybe that's in Rule 10. As far as what happens if the president elect dies before Inauguration Day, that is covered in the U.S. Constitution, Amendment XX , Section 3. The vice president elect steps right in, the same as he would do if it happened after the inauguration. If it's the vice president who kicks off, the president names his replacement, but it also has to be approved by congress.
I don't remember hearing a woman use the word "relationship" to refer to what goes on between men and women until after the mill closed, and I don't believe I've ever heard a guy use that term except on television. We used to say that we were "going" or "going out" with somebody in polite company, or that we were "fucking, hammering, or nailing" her in impolite company. I don't know how the young people talk about each other today, but I suspect they talk differently amongst themselves than they do when adults are around. I don't remember ever hearing anything exactly like the Trump quote that Ken cited, but that's probably because I don't know any stars. For all I know, stars might be able to get away with kissing strange women and grabbing them by the pussy, but if anybody I knew tried something like that, I'm pretty sure there would be unpleasant consequences.
It seems that Rule 9 pretty well covers what happens when a presidential candidate is eliminated from the race, but I didn't see anything there that says he can be arbitrarily removed at the will of the committee. Maybe that's in Rule 10. As far as what happens if the president elect dies before Inauguration Day, that is covered in the U.S. Constitution, Amendment XX , Section 3. The vice president elect steps right in, the same as he would do if it happened after the inauguration. If it's the vice president who kicks off, the president names his replacement, but it also has to be approved by congress.
rule 9
I thought I would present the text of this mysterious rule 9, so as to save googling back and forth during discussion. I like the phrase death, declination, or otherwise. I reckon otherwise could be replaced by whatever.
This does not preclude my morning post.
This does not preclude my morning post.
Rule 9 of the 2012 Rules of the Republican Party is entitled Filling Vacancies in Nominations.
Rule 9
| Filling Vacancies in Nominations
(a) The Republican National Committee is hereby authorized and empowered to fill any and all vacancies which may occur by reason of death, declination, or otherwise of the Republican candidate for President of the United States or the Republican candidate for Vice President of the United States, as nominated by the national convention, or the Republican National Committee may reconvene the national convention for the purpose of filling any such vacancies.
(b) In voting under this rule, the Republican National Committee members representing any state shall be entitled to cast the same number of votes as said state was entitled to cast at the national convention.
(c) In the event that the members of the Republican National Committee from any state shall not be in agreement in the casting of votes hereunder, the votes of such state shall be divided equally, including fractional votes, among the members of the Republican National Committee present or voting by proxy.
(d) No candidate shall be chosen to fill any such vacancy except upon receiving a majority of the votes entitled to be cast in the election.[1]
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